


Do Not Pity The Dead

by hallieCB3



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Daenerys Deserved Better, F/M, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Jon Snow Knows Nothing, Jonerys, POV Daenerys, POV Jon Snow, Post-Canon Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2020-03-08 17:07:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 25,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18898972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hallieCB3/pseuds/hallieCB3
Summary: A follow up to the events from the Series Finale, a fix-it of sorts.





	1. Jon I

**Author's Note:**

> Needless to say I didn't like the Series Finale and I am still digesting what happened. No matter what, I'm still faithful to this ship, no matter what unearned twists and shock value ending they have delivered. I have some ideas for more cheerful and positive perspectives (aside of it, their endings were kinda open but we will never know).

_"We could stay a thousand years here, no one could ever find us."_

_"Ask me again in ten years."_

As time went by, his days were endurable. Sort of.

When did he become a shade of what he used to be? Where that guy who would lead a party to avenge his fallen Lord Commander or the one killing Wildlings in the Battle of Castle Black had gone? What happened with that Jon Snow that foolishly but bravely ran against the Bolton cavalry?

Only shadows were left. People moved on with their lives, no Night Watch or White Walkers to worry about. His knowledge about the status of affairs in Westeros was limited, and he frankly didn't give a damn.

He had been used. As the days passed by, he had realized that. He didn't have to wait ten years to admit it.

And the worst is that he had allowed them to use him.

He could imagine Tyrion getting used to be again Hand of the King, he could picture his younger brother, or better said, cousin ruling the southern kingdoms of Westeros with no real care about anything. He could picture his old friend Sam, having his dreams come true with his position of Grand Maester and with a family of his own. He could imagine Sansa, ruling the North as their Queen, what she always wanted, to become a queen.

Did he actually get what he wanted? Of course not.

What he really wanted was something he would never get. Or better said, someone.

As time went by, he realised the faces from his past would start diluting. He wasn't able to remember the face of the one who raised him as his father. Every time it got harder to remember how his lost brothers looked like: Robb, the little Rickon, even Theon, who was as much as Ned Stark's son as him. Even the people who was around him when he joined the Night Watch: Pyp, Grenn, Maester Aemon, Lord Commander Mormont.

It was even hard to remember how that redhead wildling kissed by fire that he loved once looked like. All he could remember was the tone of her voice, sneering at him saying: "You know nothing, Jon Snow".

And that was a fact. He did not know anything at all.

The only think he knew for sure that there was one face he could not forget at all. The face of the woman he truly loved. He loved her, and she loved him. And yet, he betrayed her. No matter how hard he tried, he could not stop remembering every little detail of her face, the way she looked at him from the moment he first met her in Dragonstone to the moment the light abandoned her eyes, looking at him. It was his curse and his punishment, and he deserved it. All for being a Northern fool.

The Freefolk would allow him to brood. Tormund would spend time with him hunting, rambling but he would allow him his space to brood.

But the days were alright, compared with his nights.

Every night he would pray to whoever divinity could listen to his pleas to be able to have a dreamless sleep.

His wishes were not granted.

There were some days his dreams would take him through unexplored alternatives to the reality he got to live. He would dream what it would have been if there were no Robert's Rebellion and he had actually been raised in King's Landing or Dragonstone by Rhaegar and Lyanna. Perhaps his father would have replaced his grandfather so he would be the heir to the throne, having two loving parents and more family. He would have had a playmate of his age in his father's little sister, and being raised as a Targaryen would perhaps have made easier to fall in love with her and embrace it.

But most of his dreams were cruel. Memories of the times spent together in the reality they met, fighting together, flying through the clouds with their dragons. Loving her with no care in the world just to betray her. It doesn't matter what she did, it doesn't matter if it was for the greater good, what about him? He would wake up screaming, breathing hard to try to calm himself and feeling the weight of what he did, no matter how much time have passed. He would have to live with it for the rest of his days.

Daenerys was right.

They should have stayed in that waterfall. No one could have ever found them.


	2. Daenerys I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one's ever really gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At first this was going to be just a one-shot for Jon, since I had the feeling he was just become a plot device for the use of others but then I realised and you guys made me realised too that if our beloved characters had a less-than-satisfactory ending onscreen, at least we can do them some justice. 
> 
> And yes, still faithful to my queen Daenerys and the way she was taken away made me think it was nothing definitive for her.

_"We'll do it together."_

She finally got what she had been fighting after all this time.

She took slow steps towards the Iron Throne, what she had fought so much for.

Every single step of her journey had taken towards this. From the moment she was looking over the bay in Pentos at Illyrio Mopatis house, right before meeting Khal Drogo, to this exact moment when King's Landing had been conquered by her and her armies.

Deep inside she knew this was not exactly the way she wanted to achieve it. But in war there were always terrible sacrifices to make. She thought of the childhood she should have had, living in this same Red Keep, with a family. She thought of how Robert's Rebellion ended with his father being killed by the one who was supposed to protect him, while the troops of Tywin Lannister sacked the city. She thought of the rest of her family that was slaughtered here, she thought of the little children of Rhaegar being massacred in front of their mother before she was raped and killed too. All those losses weighed heavy in her mind, and then the bells ringing just made her feel even more angered. So Cersei would walk away with all she had done? Rhaegal, Missandei, their deaths were just for nothing?

She reached to the Iron Throne. She never got to sit on it.

When she felt the knife piercing through her heart, she thought of Qarth. She should have see it coming. She remembered her vision in the House of the Undying, where she walked through the ruins of the Red Keep and was about to touch the Iron Throne but didn't when she heard her dragons calling.

She could see the pain in Jon's face. The one who loved her had betrayed her. Just after telling him that she wanted to break the wheel with him. Together.

In those last moments, she could see the memories of that vision, her walking beyond the Wall towards a Dothraki hut. Did that mean she was about to see Drogo and their son Rhaego again? Were they still waiting for her to go all of them together to the Night Lands?

She thought again of her last words to Jon Snow. "Together." She thought of the two of them fighting against the Night King and the Army of the Dead. She thought of the two of them in that boat, loving each other making the best of every moment they could get. She thought of both of them flying in their dragons towards that waterfall that she never wanted to leave.

And then, there was nothing. It all fade to black. She couldn't see her son Drogon grieving for her, about to burn Jon Snow but directing the wrath of his fire towards that damned chair that caused all these troubles. The Iron Throne was no more.

She couldn't hear her murderer crying over her death, the one she went to save not only once, but three times already. Her kin and lover was crushed by the weight of what he has just done.

Drogon took her body and flew away from that wretched land.

But that was not the end of her story.

She opened her eyes, the light feeling excessively bright and with a strange feeling over her chest.

She didn't know where she was. "So, is this the afterlife?", she thought.

But this didn't seem to be the Night Lands. It looked like a place she had never been before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about that cliffhanger! I wanted to dwell a little bit on her last scenes and what she would have thought about that moment. I agree that she didn't get mad, she was going through this anger, rage and desire of revenge even the most sane person could go through. I'm not justifying what she did, but at least I'm trying to be more merciful than all of those who were predisposed to give her the sentence and kill her as if it were a mad dog.


	3. Jon II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That scene, from Jon POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I haven't forgotten about last chapter cliffhanger. We will find what happened with Daenerys in the next episode. Just felt right to add this one from Jon POV regarding that scene.

_"Be with me. We can do this together. We break the wheel together."_

That was the only time he saw the Iron Throne in his life. The one he was supposed to be the true heir, with the better claim.

He didn't want it. He had been repeating it over and over that he just hated the words by now.

Perhaps it was the shock of everything that came into his life in such a short period of time. The White Walkers coming, the responsibilities thrown into him when named King of the North, and that feeling he thought would never get back into his life. He thought he was just a bastard working hard to make his path through the world, and he felt he didn't deserve the love of someone as special as Queen Daenerys Targaryen. But she loved him, same as he loved her. But all that wasn't enough. He had to receive the biggest punch by finding his life was a lie. He was the trueborn son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. His uncle Ned lied to everyone to save his life.

His reaction didn't help and the timing wasn't great. He was trying to process the impact of it all, and how it would affect what he had with Daenerys. Then the dead were at Winterfell and they had larger problems to take care of. It was all so sudden that his reaction was not the best. He knew he loved her, but incest was not something common in the North, even when his grandfather had married his niece. Other times, perhaps. Her Targaryen side might not have had a huge issue with it, but he needed time to digest it. His mistake was not actually telling her so.

But it didn't matter now. After the destruction of King's Landing, where he witnessed firsthand the horrors of war against the innocent, he was still holding on to the loyalty of his pledge towards the Dragon Queen and his undying love for his Dany. But it took some talking by Tyrion and his sister Arya to convince his damn sense of honor that he needed to sacrifice his honor for the sake of the realm and the rest of his family.

His heart felt like breaking when he heard her telling him about her childhood believing there would be a thousand swords in that chair. He grieved for all she went through with her brother Viserys, not having a stable life during her first years as she had recounted to him during those late hours in her bed when they were sailing together. At least he had a fixed place to stay when little, even when he was a bastard but raised with his trueborn siblings.

And it was done. At the moment he put the knife in her heart, he regretted it immediately. He had a terrible flashback to the time when an arrow went through that redhead wildling he once loved. He didn't shoot the arrow himself, but it almost felt like he did.

The last thing she saw was his face. The face of an Oathbreaker. The face of a Queenslayer. The face of a Kinslayer. After telling her that she was his Queen and that he loved her.

When Drogon appeared immediately when he was torn by grief, he thought Drogon would burn him immediately. He was resigned to die by fire. He deserved it. But the dragon chose to destroy with fire the Iron Throne as the one to blame for the death of his mother. He didn't think his heart could take more pain when he saw Drogon trying to reanimate his mother and shrieking with grief. He took her body with his claw and flew away from the Red Keep.

"Would you do it again?", Tormund asked once when they were sitting by the fire one night.

He was torn apart by his duty and the love he still felt for her. He just remained silent looking at the flames.

He knew it wasn't right. Deep in his heart, he didn't know if he had the chance to go back time if we would do the same. He didn't know if that feeling would go away one day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I had to be snarky to the limited choices of dialogue our little crow had during this season ("I don't want it", "she's/you're my queen").


	4. Daenerys II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She is back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A friend of mine sent me a clip where in that 8x06 Small Council scene you can hear clearly when Sam is about to say "Volantis" but Bronn starts talking. He was saying Drogon had been spotted flying east to Volantis. And Volantis was where Melisandre went after leaving Dragonstone and before going to Winterfell, because the Red Temple of the Lord of Light was located there, so it clearly fits into my headcanon.

_Zȳhys ōñoso jehikagon Āeksiot epi_   
_Zȳhys perzys stepagon Āeksio Ōño jorepi_   
_Se morghūltas lȳs qēlītsos sikagon_   
_Hen sȳndrorro, ōños._   
_Hen ñuqīr, perzys._   
_Hen morghot, glaeson_

_("We ask the Lord to shine his light_   
_We beg the Lord to share his fire,_   
_And light a candle that has gone out._   
_From darkness, light._   
_From ashes, fire._   
_From death, life.")_

"Welcome back, Daenerys Stormborn."

A slim figure dressed in red approached her. She was laying naked over a slab.

She couldn't understand. Was it all just a bad dream? Her last memory was being in King's Landing, falling into the arms of the man she loved. The man who stabbed her and killed her. She looked down and saw the wound below her left breast.

She started shaking. She should not be here. She had failed. The throne was at her grasp, the Seven Kingdoms were already hers, but she had lost everything for trusting the man she loved. The one she thought loved her.

"Where am I? He stabbed me. He put a knife in my heart. I should be dead!"

"Yes, but your story is not over yet. The Lord of Light had indicated so by guiding your dragon to bring you here to Volantis and bringing you back from the dead."

Daenerys couldn't help it and started sobbing while she tried to stand up.

The woman in red walked towards her to hold her and help her to sit, while covering with a blue robe.

"My name is Kinvara, I am the High Priestess of the Red Temple of Volantis."

The name was familiar. She knew who she was. She remembered her advisors mentioning her going to Meereen while she was prisoner of the Dothraki.

"I heard about you. You and your priests helped bring peace to Meereen."

"Yes, and by the time you came back bringing fire and blood to the slavers who were attacking Meereen, I had already returned to Volantis. I had seen in the flames you would be coming back to save your people."

Kinvara walked to a near table and poured a liquid over a metallic goblet.

"Drink. This will help."

Daenerys took the goblet from Kinvara with a shaking hand. She didn't know what she was drinking but her throat was thankful for it. She started feeling warmer, but she was still in shock, trying to make sense of it all.

"But... why? I failed. I saved them but couldn't save others. Couldn't save myself."

"I told your advisors once that you were the once who was promised. From the fire you were reborn to help remake the world. And that you did. You freed the slaves and crucified the masters for their sins. You helped saved the living from the dead during the Long Night that was coming. Your dragons helped purified nonbelievers by the thousands, burning their sins and flesh away."

She closed her eyes. The weight of what she did fell over her.

"I... I heard the bells. I knew they were surrendering the city. But she took so much from me... I couldn't think, I started burning everything. I thought it was right. And I died for it!"

And she started sobbing harder.

Kinvara looked at her and told her:

"Perhaps it was the price you had to pay. That was the Lord of Light's will. To bring you both back from the dead."

"What?"

Kinvara took her hand and placed it over her belly.

"Prophecies are dangerous things. You once asked Melisandre of Ashaii if she thought you were the Princess that was Promised. You had a role to play, as did another, Jon Snow. You both helped to defeat the Night King and his Army. Perhaps none of you got to kill him, but you helped unseat him from the dragon he took from you and made it easier for him to be killed."

Her mind could not process everything she was listening. She was drifting from one memory to another. She could not believe the words of Kinvara.

_"He took a knife in the heart for his people."_

_"I cannot have children. The dragons are the only children I'll ever have."_

_"You're not like everyone else. And your family hasn't seen its end. You're still here."_

_"Hasn't it occurred to you that she might not be a reliable source of information?"_

She started breathing faster and feeling even more the wound in her chest.

Kinvara looked at her and told her: "You need to rest." She helped Daenerys to stand up and walked towards a near room, where there was a bed ready for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How Drogon was able to take his mother's body to Volantis?
> 
> Well, I guess we can assume it was the will of the Lord of Light to take her there. Wasn't one of her Priestess the one who brought Ice and Fire together and asked Daenerys to summon Jon Snow?


	5. Interlude: Davos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What if the Seven Kingdoms, for once in their whole shit history, were ruled by a just woman and an honorable man?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I have defined what's coming, but I got this in my head and decided to bring an interlude to mention a pro-Jonerys character and his perspective. Hope you like this!

The ashes were mostly gone but the destruction was still around.

Ser Davos would walk towards the shore, whenever he felt he needed a moment to think.

Things were slowly going back to normal, but he couldn't stop thinking there had been so much injustice for some.

Here he was, standing, when he was not a fighter but had survived several battles himself. He had survived kings and queens. But was he happy about it?

He couldn't help but think there were a lot of victims in these wars, either from their own ambition or from others.

He thought of his son, who died on this same shore when fighting for Stannis Baratheon.

He thought of the sweet Princess Shireen, perhaps the most innocent of them all, that sweet girl who helped him to learn to read and write.

He had seen enough pain and suffering caused by war in his lifetime, even more in recent times. From Blackwater to the North, from Winterfell to King's Landing.

_"What if the Seven Kingdoms, for once in their whole shit history, were ruled by a just woman and an honorable man?"_

He sighed.

He remembered the moment he pleaded to the Red Woman, the same one he swore he would kill with his own hands later on, to bring back Jon Snow from the dead. The same one he would follow later to battle to recover Winterfell, the same one he would travel with to Dragonstone to meet with Daenerys Targaryen.

So much happened in such a short period of time, but he couldn't help but grieve for what it could have been. He grieved for the honorable former Lord Commander, former King in the North that was exiled for killing the woman he loved, his Queen. He grieved for the strong and beautiful Queen that, even when some would call "Mad Queen", he remembered as the warrior queen who saved the lives of others so many times. He remembered her as the one who wouldn't hesitate to risk her life and her dragons to save the Northern fool and his companions beyond the Wall; the young woman clearly in love who would stand for hours at the top of the wall waiting for a miracle that bring Jon Snow back to them. He wouldn't forget her shocked expression when watching Jon's scars that made his own slip "a knife in the heart" to be more than a figure of speech. It was a cruel joke of the Gods he didn't believe in that she was killed with a knife in the heart too.

He didn't judge her that harshly. He thought of everything she had lost. He thought of the sweet and kind Missandei of Naath, who had chosen to follow the Queen she chose even if it meant her death. He thought of her dragons, and how she had sacrificed two of them to save so many people. The same people who would be ungrateful and see her anyway as a foreign invader. He thought of Ser Jorah Mormont, who stood and fought by his Queen until the end of his days. He wouldn't judge her. He knew wars were tough. He served Stannis, he knew it. Sometimes the hardest choices required the strongest wills.

And now Jon Snow was back to where he started. It was also cruel that he had left it all behind when he said that his watch was ended, and now he was punished to go back. Davos volunteered to go with him, but Jon refused. "They could use your experience here more than in the Wall. You don't have to pay for my crimes too.", Jon told him with a sad smile, but his eyes showed him how much Jon was suffering.

If only things have been different. He would remember the young couple in Winterfell, enjoying a brief moment of happiness like the young ones they were. They were obviously in love, oblivious to anything or anyone around them, and he would ever wonder how things could have been if they had ruled together. Together, they would have been difficult to defeat. A just woman and an honorable man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I think Davos quite pro-Jonerys and from his interaction with Jon of course he would have been concerned about the fate of the man he pleaded to the woman he once tried to kill to bring him back. Of course the finale with all those loose ends and nonsense would not give us a moment between Davos and Jon but in my headcanon it totally happened.


	6. Daenerys III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daenerys decides what to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must admit I got a lot of inspiration for this chapter from the "House of the Undying" visions from the series (that could have a lot of different interpretations, based on who you ask) and the "House Targaryen" playlist in Spotify.

_"Only death pays for life."_

It was dark and she was laying in her bed.

Days and nights went by and she had been recovering with the help of Kinvara and the other followers of the Lord of Light in the Red Temple.

She was touching her growing belly. She still couldn't believe it. Her curse was broken.

She thought the moments she had not felt well, but dismissed the signs as a result of what she was going through. She remembered the feast in Winterfell after the Funeral Pyre of the Fallen Heroes during the Battle against the Army of the Dead. She felt no appetite at all, and at the first taste of wine during the toast to Gendry she didn't enjoy the flavor. That was the reason why she just raised her goblet during the following toasts but didn't drink. She assummed it was normal due to her grief for losing Ser Jorah, and since there were people with real injuries to be treated by Maester Wolkan she chose not to bother him with her minor scratches and bruises from falling from Drogon during the battle.

Would have anything changed if she had known before? Would it have prevented what she did? Would it have prevented what Jon did?

Her heart would hurt at the thought of him. She hadn't forgiven him for what he did, she was still angry with him, but in some way she tried to understand his motivations. She could see his love for her, even when he was struggling to accept it due to being relatives. He was not fully there when she needed him the most. And he had betrayed her by telling the truth to his Stark relatives. She knew Sansa would use it as a weapon against her. She had tried to win the elder sister of Jon with little success. She could see the young woman had gone through her own path of difficulties, but that instead of creating a common ground for them to understand each other made her wary of the Queen her brother had bent the knee to.

And that revelation was something neither of them could control. Her advisors instead of focusing on developing a proper strategy to defeat Cersei, started conspiring against her, using her damned legacy as the Mad King's daughter as a reason to discard her and choose Jon.

But she had to move on. There was no point for her in dwelling in the past. She was back from the dead. She had failed, but she had another chance.

And the most incredible thing was that she had another chance at living and another chance at being a mother at the same time. She had to process both things at the same time. It wasn't easy.

She thought of her former goal of getting back what was taken from her and her family. According to Kinvara, she had set everything in motion to remake the world and break the wheel, and coming back was part of the Lord of Light plan. She had sacrificed so much that the Lord of Light had rewarded her with another opportunity. But to do what exactly? To go back again towards that same journey? To face more losses than the ones she had already gotten? She had a conflict with how everything ended for her but at the same time she realized power was taking her through a path of destruction because she had gotten so far she didn't want to lose what she had accomplished. At that moment, hearing the bells of supposed surrender, she fell into the trap of her own rage and pain for everything she had lost and gone through. She allowed her suffering to draw the line between what she thought it was right and what it was easy.

That was the reason why trying to get back into the fight for an Iron Throne that didn't exist anymore was not an option. She had another reason to live now.

_"You'll get that throne you want so badly, I'm sure of it. I hope it brings you happiness."_

She remembered the words Daario Naharis had told her when they said farewell. She got the throne, but it didn't bring her happiness, only a knife in the heart, she thought sadly.

She started drifting to sleep.

And again, she was walking through the same place. Her feet were walking through the snow. She looked behind her, and the Wall stood at her back. She knew she had to keep walking ahead, beyond the Wall.

She thought it was quite familiar - she had been there before in her vision in the House of the Undying. She had seen a similar landscape when she was standing on the top of the Wall, holding to the slightest hope that the man she loved would come back to her.

She knew in her vision that after walking in the snow, she would end up at a Dothraki tent where she would find Drogo and Rhaego. But in these dreams she just kept walking, and saw a white wolf.

When Jon stabbed her, she thought she would see her late husband and son again. She didn't.

"You keep dreaming about the Wall." Kinvara told her.

"Yes. Same as the vision I had before. But I never get to that hut with the family I lost. All I see is a White Wolf."

Kinvara looked at her with a quizzical look and walked to the fire brazier on the center of the room. She kept looking at the flames.

"The White Wolf is calling you to go beyond the Wall."

"What for? What could be there for me?"

"Jon Snow. He was exiled as a criminal to the Night Watch to pay for your death. He left with the wildlings to live with them beyond the Wall."

"I don't want to see him again. He stabbed me! He didn't only kill me, he murdered my child as well!"

"It's his child too."

She was at a loss of words. She tried to understand, she didn't want to think about it. All her mind could do at that moment was to think of that conversation they had in the Dragonpit.

_"You're not like everyone else. And your family hasn't seen its end. You're still here."_

_"I cannot have children."_

_"Who told you that?"_

_"The witch that killed my husband."_

_"Hasn't it occurred to you that she might not be a reliable source of information?"_

"He betrayed me." Her voice was hoarse.

Kinvara turned her eyes from the brazier towards her. Her blue gaze fixed on her eyes.

"Everyone is what they are and where they are for a reason. Terrible things happen for a reason. But there's still so much you don't know. Everything is the Lord's will. Men and women make mistakes."

The High Priestess walked towards her and took her hand between her hands.

"He is suffering. He was used by others, he immediately regretted what he did. He still regrets it."

A tear fell by her cheek.

"I don't know if I can do it."

"The Lord of Light brought you back for a reason. The Lord of Light brought him back for a reason. Follow your dreams, Daenerys Stormborn."

"But how can I find him?"

"Trust in your dragon. He will show you the way. After all, Jon Snow might be the White Wolf, but he has the Blood of the Dragon too. Your dragon knows, do you?"

Kinvara and the other priests (some of them would call her "Mhysa") helped her get ready. Her belly had grown but not so big she could not ride Drogon. She was wearing a blue long robe with a cape that could help her to endure the colder environment of the lands beyond the Wall.

She flew back to Westeros, but chose to fly over the clouds to avoid being seen by anyone.

She had mixed feelings about riding her dragon again. She thought of all the destruction and death she had brought to King's Landing. Even when the dream about the Wall had been constant, she preferred it to the other nights where she would have nightmares about the Battle of King's Landing. She would see the flesh of random people alike, women, men and children melting like wax, while their screams were horrifying and the bells would not stop ringing. All she could see was fire and blood, mixed with ashes.

Those nights she would wake up sweating and breathing heavily. She would hug her belly and cry trying to calm herself. How could she do that? She had once locked Rhaegal and Viserion for a child that Drogon had burned. How she could burn an entire city that had surrendered?

She saw the white tall surface of the Wall made of ice, and trusted Drogon to take her where she needed to go.

Drogon landed on a clear within the woods. The trees were tall and some had a few green leaves.

When she stepped into the surface, she covered herself with the cape over her front. It was significantly colder than in Volantis. She was wondering which path should she take when she felt a pair of red eyes looking at her.

A huge white wolf started walking from the trees. His right ear was mostly gone and he was growling while approaching to her and Drogon. Her dragon started growling showing his teeth at the giant beast, but she made a gesture to calm him.

She had seen Ghost before. She had heard Jon talking about his unique pet and how he and his siblings had gotten their direwolves a long time ago. She hadn't had the opportunity to meet him, due to how things unfolded. She remembered seeing him around but she wasn't as near as they were now. The giant white beast approached her. She held out her hand for Ghost to sniff. He stopped growling and sniffed her hand with delicacy. She started stroking his fur, and the white direwolf continued sniffing at her, and letting out a soft whine he rested his head on her belly, which was partially hidden by the oversized cape she was wearing. Daenerys smiled softly. Ghost might have picked the scent of her baby who was part wolf. It reminded her of the time in Dragonstone when Drogon allowed Jon to pet him.

Dany hugged the beast and told him softly: "Good boy. Where is he?"

The direwolf started padding slowly to the direction where he came from but waited on her to follow him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all like this. They are seeing each other next!!!


	7. Jon III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon thinks he is seeing a vision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They meet again. Angst!

_"Be with me. Build a new world with me. This is our reason... It has been from the beginning since you were a little boy with a bastard's name and I was a little girl who couldn't count to 20. We do it together. We break the wheel together._ "

_"You are my queen. Now and always!"_

It seemed it would be just another day, like the previous one. He woke up, after a lousy night of sleep. He sighed at the thought of other nights that seemed that were lived by someone else, by another man who had it all, in another life. Those times when he would wake up with her warm body in his arms, with the feeling of her soft silver hair tresses as his fingers loved to run through. He would gather as much willpower as he could to leave her side and go back to his chambers, before someone else noticed in the ship they were sailing together to fight the Army of the Dead.

He had lost it all.

No point in dwelling on what it could have been.

He started dressing up to carry on for the day. His eyes found his sword, Longclaw.

It was not the first time the thought had crossed his mind. He could end it at any time, once and for all. But he didn't get to choose. If Dany didn't, why would he? Death would be too good for him. He deserved to live every single day with the weight of what he did.

_"It's yours. May it serve you well. And your children after you."_

He remembered the words of See Jorah Mormont when he gave the sword back to him. His words felt bitter now. Back then, the old knight had looked at him with an interesting look when saying that. Perhaps he had known from the way him and his Queen would act and look at each other the feeling that was growing between them. At that point he had allowed himself to dream that he could aspire to climb to the top of the mountain and reach the paradise, and be worthy of being loved by someone like her, him being just a bastard who had thought himself not good enough to have a family of his own.

Now he was back where he had started. Kind of. All he knew was that even if he had left Castle Black to live with the Free Folk, he would take no wife, he would father no children. The only woman he would have wanted was no more and thanks to him.

They had camped not far from the Fist of the First Men, further from where the burned remains of Craster's Keep were.

His hut was located a little bit away from the rest of the Free Folk. He had tried to get used to his exile but the days went by and he wasn't really a good company. He would spend some time with them by the fire, trying to live the same way but couldn't. He would hunt, help others as much as he could, but most of the time he would keep by himself until Tormund looked for him.

He was gathering some arrows to go hunting when he heard some familiar padding coming from the woods.

"What did you find, boy?", he said without looking around.

He felt something was amiss because he sensed his direwolf stopped moving and didn't get to him.

He was not alone. He turned around.

At first he thought he was hallucinating. Would he become mad too, like his grandfather?

He couldn't believe his eyes.

She looked like a vision, dressed in blue, with her hair arranged in a simple braid by her side, but just as beautiful as he remembered her or even more.

Her eyes had the same look of sadness and feeling of betrayal he remembered, too.

He could not utter a single word. He was speechless. He rubbed his eyes in complete disbelief.

When he could gather himself, he could just say: "How?"

The vision took a while to reply, with a heavy voice: "A red woman. Drogon took my body to Volantis."

His mind went back to Castle Black, when he was brought back by Melisandre.

Daenerys moved her hand and showed him the dagger he had used to kill her while walking towards him.

"Why did you do it, Jon? I just want to try to understand why."

Her voice was soft but intense. She wasn't yelling at him but somehow this was worse.

"I thought I did the right thing! You were becoming what you swore to destroy!"

" I wanted to build a new world, a better world, I wanted to do it with you, you and me together! Same as we fought the Night King! I followed you and fought your war, I just wanted to break the wheel and do what I thought it was right! "

"You burned a city to the ground! Slaughtered innocents and you wanted to do the same to the rest of the world and anyone who would stand in your way!"

Her tears started falling through her cheeks.

"I was angry, I had lost so much and found no love in Westeros. Lost my dragons. Lost my closest friends. Lost you. You pushed me away when I needed you the most. You told the truth to your sister and my advisors tried to push me away while portraying me as mad. And then you betrayed me at the end."

He had fallen to his knees. She stopped in front of him, dagger in hand.

"I'm sorry, Dany." he whispered her name.

"Do not call me that!" , she yelled with her eyes full of tears, while she tightened her grip on the dagger's hilt.

"Please forgive me! I made a terrible mistake..."

"You were the only one I trusted. I thought you loved me, you kissed me and then you put a knife through my heart!" Her eyes were a blazing fire and her voice was shaking.

"You are right. I don't deserve your forgiveness. I deserve nothing. Just kill me. A knife through my heart would be a small mercy for what I did to you. DO IT! Have mercy and just do it!"

He was trembling with sorrow but he was ready to pay for his crimes.

"DO IT! I deserve it. I betrayed you. I let them use me. They called to my stupid sense of honor and duty. I was stupid enough to listen to them."

She closed her eyes. Sighing, she dropped the dagger in the snow.

"I still want to make you pay for what you did. But part of my heart tells me you were also a pawn in the game others were playing."

Jon shook his head with a sour expression.

"I thought you were not yourself. They convinced me that I was the only one in your way all for that stupid claim, and that you could even do harm to me and my family."

Daenerys looked at him with a pained expression.

"Did you ever believe I could harm you at all? I would have never hurt you. I lost one of my dragons when I went to rescue you leaving my fight behind. I saved you twice fighting in Winterfell against the undead. I had already held a man who loved me and died for me in my arms. I had to give a mercy death to another, my sun and stars, but I don't think I could do it again."

He looked down, feeling the weight of her words.

"I'm not proud of all the destruction I caused. I have to live with it. I guess we both will have to live with what we did. I don't want to fight anymore. I have lost so much already, I don't want to lose this."

And then with a swift movement of her right hand she dropped aside the cape she had over her left shoulder uncovering herself.

He suddenly felt like his heart would split in many pieces, as if many needles were piercing through it. The pain he had felt when Olly stabbed him in the heart didn't compare to what he was feeling now.

It was as if he had lost the ground below his knees and he was falling down to the deepest pit.

She was pregnant. Daenerys was pregnant. With his child.

He had not only killed the woman he loved.

He had killed the woman he loved and that was carrying his child, and he didn't know it. He was surprised, but in his heart there was a intense and sudden fight between the immense joy he was feeling and the worst kind of guilt he was drowning on. If she hadn't been brought back, he would have killed his own child too without even knowing. And he actually did. It was a miracle he didn't deserve.

He stood up and grabbed her hands.

"Please stay. I don't know what to do, I don't know what to say to make you believe I am terribly sorry! I don't deserve your forgiveness. If I could go back in time I would have stayed by your side. Any reservations I had were nonsense. I would have chosen you."

Her beautiful eyes were full of tears. He prayed to all the Gods she would listen to his pleas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had tears whilst writing this. Listening to the #ForTheThrone compilation was not helping either. (And also being up awake since 4 am lol.)


	8. Daenerys IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daenerys has a choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I have so many ideas for this fic, and I really appreciate all the good feedback. It has been cathartic for me to write this. Now we see what happens next after they met again!

_"You were right from the beginning."_

She had whispered softly to Drogon "wait for me here" and followed the direwolf. The white beast had waited for her and then paddled by her side. Almost her size, he took her to a clear area, near the end of the forest, where she could see a settlement of wildling huts. Ghost took her to one located at the immediate edge, where a familiar figure dressed with a black fur cape was working diligently getting ready to go hunting.

Could she ever forgive what he did? Her heart started beating faster at the sight of the man who loved her yet betrayed her.

Then he turned around to see her.

Daenerys noticed Jon had lost weight, his face looked thinner and sad. He was wearing his hair loose, with his black curls framing his face. Her memory took her to those nights in the ship on their way to Winterfell, when she loved to untie his hair bun and run her fingers through those curls. But then looking at his eyes took her to that moment, when she felt the knife piercing her heart and the pain of his betrayal.

After the surprise and the revelations, he had asked her to stay. He seemed truly full of remorse for what he had done to her.

And she did stay. She knew it wouldn't be easy, but her dream and her visions had taken her to this place.

Also, the weather didn't cooperate the first days in case she wanted to leave. Drogon would fly around to a cave on the near mountains, and come back with game he had hunted.

Jon lived in a large hut, with enough space for both of them. He immediately apologized for the conditions he lived in. Daenerys didn't waste any time to mention she had been pregnant before when she was living as a nomad with the Dothraki. He would leave her his cot and sleep on some furs at the other side of the hut, as if he would not dare to be too close to her.

She resented the weather, though. The Free Folk had received her well, and Tormund was surprised that she was alive but he was kind and respectful towards her. He gave her a white fur from a bear they had hunted recently so she wouldn't resent the cold as she was not used to the weather. She was grateful towards him. It reminded her of her white coat, the one she wore for the first time when she flew with her dragons to save Jon and the rest of the expedition beyond the Wall.

"Thank you, Tormund."

"No need to thank me, Dragon Queen." She noticed the wildling leader was trying to use a softer language when talking to her.

"Call me Daenerys. I'm not a queen anymore."

"You still have a dragon, and you would still be a queen had this idiot little crow known better." Tormund said with a sad smile.

She remained silent.

"He's been regretting it ever since, every single day. I've never seen him like that, even when he lost someone he loved before."

She remembered the redhead wildling Jon once mentioned during their long talks. Tormund continued:

"She was my friend, Ygritte. I saw him mourning her and burning her body North of the Wall, where she belonged. But this time he's been totally broken by what he did."

She struggled to hold the tears as much as she could. Tormund looked towards his friend, who was helping skinning the game they had hunted.

"The little crow always does what he thinks it's right, but sometimes he goes by what people tells him it's right by his foolish honor. That was what got him killed in the first place."

She sighed. "At least it is a decent way to get killed for. I remember what you said back in Winterfell about who would ride a dragon, either a madman or a King. Perhaps a Mad Queen too."

"You were not mad. You were suffering. Jon told me what happened. They killed your second dragon in front of you. They killed your best friend as well. And all these ungrateful Northern bastards didn't even thank you for saving their asses. I would have killed those Southern kneelers myself if I had lost what you did."

A lone tear slipped through her cheek, and she immediately wiped it with her hand.

"I was drunk back then at the feast, I apologize for saying that. You saved our asses for becoming dead men walking that time in the lake and then in the thick of the battle, where the dead were about to swamp us. You will be always the Dragon Queen to me." And he smiled, walking away to help carry some logs for the fire.

The freefolk women were kind and attentive to her. They reminded her of the Dothraki women of her first khalasar, and they were willing to teach her to learn how to help with the common duties, to sew, to cook, to string up bows. They helped her to sew better suited clothes for the weather as her belly kept growing more to fit in the few pieces of clothing she had brought with her from Essos.

Even Ghost would not stay far from her and her unborn baby. He would sleep near her cot. As if he knew she was struggling with the cold weather, he would curl around her feet to keep her warm. He would notice Jon looking at his direwolf as if he would gladly keep her warm too.

The first days they were awkward between each other. She was also struggling as her pregnancy progressed and some days were harder than others for her so her mood would be worse. But Jon would endure every single thing. She would start warming up towards him when seeing how devoted was to her and their unborn child’s wellbeing. But still she had to face the consequences of what she did.

Some nights she would cry silent to sleep remembering everything she had lost. She would still mourn the loss of her sweet friend, confidant and advisor Missandei, and how she could not save her from dying in chains. She would mourn too her old Bear Ser Jorah, the one who had betrayed her but followed her until death to protect her. She would wonder what happened to Grey Worm, that valiant soldier who refused to change his despised name because it had given him luck since it was the name he had when the Mother of Dragons had liberated him. So much happened to her in such a short period of time, including the revelation of a truth that came to shake everything she and Jon had thought about themselves.

Some nights were worse.

She would wake up screaming from her nightmares from the Battle of King's Landing. It felt like she was reliving everything once again. The ashes, the fire, people burning. The difference was that Jon would be for her, jumping awake from the furs where he was sleeping to hold her in his arms so she could calm from the vivid horrors she had just dreamed of. "Ssshhh, it's okay, it was just a bad dream", he would whisper to her ear while she was sobbing in his arms.

And then she would drift back to sleep, to dream of spring and lemon trees.

One of those nights, she just sighed and told him:

"I was wrong. I would burn down the entire world if I thought it was right."

Jon looked at her with soft eyes.

"We all make mistakes. You were grieving and lost so much. And I didn't help either."

"I should have understood. It was a huge revelation for what we thought we were. You always thought you were a bastard; I thought the Iron Throne was mine by right. But I should have reacted different. You found finally who was your mother and all I could think was that you were the rightful heir, not me."

"A heir of a throne I didn't want."

"I think you said that enough times to make your point, Jon Snow." He chuckled. "But as we saw, it didn't matter for others. It didn't matter that I had fought so much to get back to what was taken from my family, it belonged to somebody else. Blood of my blood. Someone I loved. I should have been happy to find I was not alone, as I had thought when Viserys was killed."

"A Targaryen alone in the world is a terrible thing." She nodded.

"Maester Aemon said that once. I wish you could have met him."

She sighed. She remembered when Jon told her about what he thought the last relative he had in Westeros back in the road to Winterfell. Turned out he was not the last one.

"I was so stupid, Jon. I cannot believe I was begging you not to reveal the truth when just a few hours before, I could have died if Ser Jorah was not there to protect me."

"I should have protected you." She could tell his words were still heavy with guilt for what had happened afterwards.

He kissed her forehead. She closed her eyes and drift to sleep in his arms.

Not so many nights later, she woke up in the middle of the night with a pain on her lower belly and a liquid flowing between her legs.

Jon woke up. "What is it?"

"The baby is coming."

Before she could notice, Jon moved so fast to call for help that the healer was already at their hut.

She was scared. She could see by looking at Jon, he was worried for her as she would grip his hand so hard as she was groaning in pain.

"I am afraid, Jon. Neither our mothers survived giving birth. Promise me you will take care of our child if something happens to me. Promise me, Jon."

"No, don't say that. You were brought back for a reason, remember? You will be fine."

She felt as she could not handle the pain in her insides. The healer would ask her to push and every time she thought she couldn't be able to go on.

Jon was propped behind her and holding her tenderly. He could tell she was struggling because he started whispering softly in her ears:

"You can do it. You are the Mother of Dragons. The Breaker of Chains. The Unburnt. The Undying. You've endured worse things. I have faith in you. Not in any gods, not in myths or legends. In yourself, Daenerys Targaryen."

She remembered her own words, what it seemed ages ago when they met in Dragonstone.

Then suddenly a loud cry was heard that made her heart warm up and feel like glowing.

She saw the red face of her baby, crying loud as the healer was cleaning every single part of the little body in front of her.

"You have a son."

She asked the healer to give her the baby. Jon watched as their little son was placed on her chest with tears in his eyes. Dany could see the tears running down his face, and she could feel her son - their son - pressed against her. She held him and looked at his little round face, still red and crying, and kissed softly his head covered with silver-white hair, just like hers. A perfect baby, with no scales or defects. Her son's tiny fist closed around Jon's finger.

She couldn't believe it.

Every single step of her way had taken her to this place.

Every victory, every loss, every heartbreak.

Everything was worth it.

She started humming bits of an old lullaby in broken Valyrian between sobs, thinking of the babe she never got to hold in her arms.

The baby calmed down and his eyes found her face. She felt a lump growing in her throat. "Do you know me already?", she thought.

She realized she never really wanted the Throne, deep in her heart she just wanted to go home.

_"I don't wanna be his queen. I want to go home."_

Deep inside she still was that frightened little girl that wanted to go finally home. She thought home was Westeros, she thought it was Dragonstone, she thought it was King's Landing and the Red Keep with the Iron Throne from her ancestors. But it wasn't.

Jon was holding her with a huge smile in his face, looking both her and their son in awe. She was still sobbing as he leaned and kissed her head.

She found her home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like this! Quoting Hank Pym in "Ant-Man", I believe everyone has a shot at redemption. I really wanted to have an interaction with Tormund and Dany, and felt he would respect and admire her strength and the love Jon has for her. Also I have been thinking of all the times during her journey she has expressed her wish to go home (in Pentos, then in the Dothraki hut when she tells Jorah she prayed for home too, then after Drogon take her away from the fighting pit in Meereen, then when she is already in Dragonstone and tells Tyrion that it does not feel like home). Emilia said on an interview even then, with the Throne at her grasp, Dany would still be that little girl that didn't have a place to call home. I'm trying to give her one in this fic.
> 
> Also for those Star Wars fans like me, I made some winks to Princess Leia (especially Tormund telling Dany she's still royalty for him). I might be repeating again what some of us have already said, but it is terrible that we have two amazing female characters that have been judged by the sins of their fathers.


	9. Jon IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon spends some moments with his newborn son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really want to thank you all for the comments and the support I have received with little fic! This week has been crazy so apologies for delaying this update. But the following chapters should be posted sooner than this one! Hope you enjoy!

_"What is honor compared to a woman's love? And what is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms?"_

It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He felt his heart could melt at the sight of Daenerys cradling their tiny son in her arms. She was singing to their baby a song in Valyrian that he could not recognize but that soothed him all the same.

She looked exhausted and her hair was messy, but he thought she never saw her looking more beautiful than that moment.

The healer asked them to give her the baby so she could settle him onto a warm blanket. The healer checked the newborn over, his eyes and mouth, running her experienced hands down the baby's limbs as he started crying again. Then she diapered and swaddled the baby and passed him to Jon, while she helped to clean Daenerys and preparing her to get some proper rest. Jon was swaying back and forth with his little son, unaware of doing it until the baby calmed down and he looked at him. The newborn was staring up at him. Jon pressed a kiss to his son's white-silver hair while he remembered the words that Maester Aemon told him once. Duty was nothing compared to what he was feeling right now. And honor was such a small price to pay compared with holding in his arms the product of their love, even if things had gone south with everything that happened between them.

The healer helped Daenerys to lie back down into bed. He eased down next to her, and Daenerys immediately reached for their baby with an exhausted but happy smile.

"Let's see if the baby wants to suckle", she suggested, while helping Daenerys to untie her gown and helping settling the baby to be fed. After a few tries, the little boy latched on and began to suckle. Jon was mesmerized looking at Dany hummed to their baby and held his little hand while the little one visible relaxed against her.

The healer left shortly afterwards. The baby started drifting off to sleep against his mother's breast.

"Are you alright?" Jon asked her.

"Tired and quite sore, but never felt better.", she whispered, with a soft smile.

"He is so beautiful, Dany."

"I can't stop looking at him. Still can't believe he's real." She answered, with her voice heavy with emotion.

He just smiled softly. She looked at him, saying:

"How are we going to call him?"

He kept playing in his head the words of the former Night Watch Maester who was so kind to him without knowing he was his kin, too.

"What do you think about Aemon?"

She smiled softly.

"When I was a little girl thinking that I would have to marry my brother, I kept thinking that our children would have Targaryen names. Then when I married Drogo, even when my son would be part of the Dothraki, I wanted to keep some Targaryen influence on him, so I called him Rhaego for the brother I never met." Jon swallowed hard at the mention of his real father. "And then, when I allowed myself to dream in that boat, I thought if I were to have any children with you it would have some Stark influence in their names."

He was conflicted at that thought. His feelings towards his Stark legacy were not the most positive due to how things had been left with his living family.

"But I think that name would be a great choice, since we both are Targaryen and especially with what you've told me about Maester Aemon, how even when I didn't know of his existence across the Narrow Sea, he always kept me in his thoughts and unbeknownst to him, he had another Targaryen around him. I only ask we call him Aemon Jorah, in memory of another great man who always protected me and also protected this little one with his life, without knowing it."

Jon nodded, thinking sadly how he had left Daenerys at the mercy of the undead to run to save Bran from the Night King.

She smiled softly, and he reached out for little Aemon.

"I'll hold him so you can sleep for a bit". She nodded exhausted, so he took his son from her chest, held him with an arm while with the other he was adjusting the furs for her to sleep comfortably. "Not going anywhere, we will stay with you."

She sighed and settled down in the bed. "It's been several moons since the last time I felt comfortable in bed."

Jon watched her while she was falling asleep. His little son was also snuffling and snoring softly over his chest with a blanket spread over them both.

He lost the count of the time he spent staring at the baby sleeping soundly. He never thought he'd ever hold a baby that new, let alone his own child, blood of his blood. It was incredible how soon this little bundle has taken up so much room in his heart.

Then silent tears started falling over him, and he couldn't help but weep, as softly as he could to avoid waking up little Aemon.

He wept for his brother Robb, the one he would be jealous while growing up for being the trueborn Stark son, who never got the chance to hold his unborn son, butchered in his mother's belly by the Freys.

He wept for this true father Rhaegar, who died in the Trident as the hammer of Robert Baratheon crushed his breastplate, shattering all the rubies from his armour, with Lyanna's name on his lips as he passed away. He never got the chance to meet the fruit of his love for the Stark girl.

He looked over at Daenerys. She was completely asleep. Her lips were rosy and pink, and her cheeks were still flushed from all her recent exertion.

He also wept for her. He wept for Dany, since she had thought any chance of holding a baby of her own was gone for her. He wept too for that first baby she had lost before she could hold him in her arms. He wept for the little baby girl born during a storm, who never met her mother. He wept for the little silver-haired girl who didn't know what it was like to be loved by a family. True, he was a bastard, but at least he grew up with a constant roof over his head, with a place to sleep and food in his table, with loving siblings. Ned Stark sacrificed his honor to save his life and give him stability.

And above all, the most bitter tears he cried were for him. He wept for himself, because he could have not had the chance to hold his baby in his arms if Dany hadn't been brought back. He wept because he was foolish enough to listen to others rather than his own heart, so he had killed both her and this precious baby.

He remembered the words of his uncle Benjen.

_"You don't understand what you'd be giving up. We have no families. None of us would ever father sons."_

_"I don't care!"_

_"You might, if you knew what it meant."_

He looked down to the sleeping baby in his arms and the woman he loved resting by his side.

Now he knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was right in the feels with Jon. I have mixed feelings when people argue that at least, Jon got some kind of happy ending since he always wanted to go to the Night's Watch (1x01) but his desire to join it was because he always felt out of place as a bastard. He started owning his condition, fighting for others and earning glory for his name, then the love of a beautiful queen and then his origin being revealed comes as a sledgehammer over him. Being sent to the Watch again is just another burden to his guilt over killing Daenerys, so at least I don't feel it's right, it's basically a cruel joke for everything his character went through.


	10. Daenerys V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daenerys takes her baby to make a new acquaintance, though she still struggles a bit with her actions and the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies, it took me a little bit to work on this chapter but the following one should be posted soon too! I hope you enjoy this.

_“They're not beasts to me. No matter how big they get or how terrifying to everyone else, they're my children"_

Mother of Dragons.

Mhysa.

Now she was Mother of Aemon too.

And he was just perfect.

She was awake but she still had her eyes closed. Her body still felt a little bit sore and tired after a few days. But this was a kind of pain she would gladly endure. She was comfortable under the furs while the pale light from outside indicated it was already late morning.

She could hear the conversation going on inside the hut between Tormund and Jon.

"This little dragon is lucky to look like his mother. I know you're prettier than my daughters, little crow, but the dragon queen is more beautiful than you."

"She is", Jon replied amused.

Tormund had been away fishing in Hardhome. He had just gotten back to the place they were settled now. He was making the acquaintance of Baby Aemon.

She opened her eyes but they were at a certain distance enough for them not to notice that she was awake.

Their baby looked tiny against Jon's chest. He was rocking him tenderly, but the little baby started crying. She smiled, thinking that could mean he was hungry. Jon tried to comfort his baby while Tormund looked amused by the sight of the mighty former Lord Commander and King of the North on such a domestic quest of trying to soothe a crying baby.

"It's a pity we don't have giant milk around to feed him to grow strong. But I guess the Dragon Queen will do."

Jon chuckled.

"Of course she'll do. She's the strongest woman I've ever met."

Tormund smiled sadly, as if he was thinking of the big woman who would have deserved that mantle and also would have given him giant babies to conquer the world.

"I might be strong, but I wouldn't mind if you bring him to me so I can feed him."

Both Jon and Tormund turned around towards her.

"Dragon Queen! I was just telling the little crow your baby is fortunate to look like you.", Tormund told her while grinning. "He's going to be a fighter, this one, he's a tough one!"

She smiled to the redhead wildling. "Thanks, Tormund."

Jon made his way to the bed and carefully sat down, while Tormund walked towards the entrance of the hut. He said before leaving:

"You chose a good name. The old maester crow was kind with us, even if we were the enemy and tended our wounded."

Daenerys settled herself in a sitting position, extending her arms to receive the baby. As soon as Baby Aemon started latching, his eyelids started to drift shut while his little fist holds Dany's finger.

"Iksā biare sir, byka mēre", she whispered as she stroked his son soft cheek. She kept her eyes on little Aemon a little longer while saying "avy jorrāelan".

She raised her head towards Jon. She had felt his gaze over her since he sat down to give her the baby to be fed. For the last few days, he had been helping her to take care of the baby so his face looked as tired as she surely looked. However, his eyes were shining brightly, looking at her and their baby.

"What did you say" he asked, curious.

"You are happy now, little one. I love you." She smiled softly, turning her eyes back to the baby, who by then had finished suckling and was snoring softly.

"I would love to know how to speak Valyrian." He yawned while he leaned back on the bed they only shared for sleeping and keep each other warm through the lingering cold winds of winter. Her belly warmed at the thought of sharing that bed in some other more pleasant ways.

She blushed slightly and, as if trying to discard her thoughts, replied:

"I could teach you, if you wish. I mean, I learned Valyrian before the Common Tongue. And it would be good for me to practice."

He opened one of his eyes, intrigued but hopeful: "Would you, really?"

"Yes."

His eyelids started drooping slowly, but with a faint smile he muttered softly: "Thank you."

She focused her attention on her sleeping baby, but still kept smiling. She couldn't still believe her son was there, in her arms. A baby of her own, half her and half Jon, the man she loved. Blood of their blood. She didn't think she was worthy, with all the death and destruction she had gone through and that she had caused, even her own death, to be there holding her baby. The thought left her breathless, but at the same time her body feeling alive with the awareness of the life she and Jon created together.

_"A knife in the heart."_

She sighed at the memory of the words from Ser Davos that had intrigued her so much, back when they met.

It was quite incredible that Jon and her were the last two Targaryens in the world that had taken a knife in the heart and both of them were resurrected. Well, now they were not the last two Targaryens. There was another.

_"When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east."_

She thought she would never have children again. She put so much weight on those merciless words. But as Melisandre was kind to inform her when she met her in Dragonstone, _"prophecies... are dangerous things."_

She realized she never got to hold Rhaego in her arms, not even during her visions in the House of the Undying. After that, she thought she would be happy only being mother to her dragons and the Mhysa of the slaves she had liberated. But even then, looking at children and mothers with their babies would cause a longing that she refused to acknowledge. And as a number of repeated couplings that she had maintained with Daario did not give evidence to think the contrary was possible, she chose to believe the witch and rather focus on her quest for the throne, with her dragons as the only children she would ever have.

Her dragons, that now were only one.

She thought about Drogon. It had been a while since the last time she rode him, since her growing belly made it almost impossible for her to do so. Also she had not seen him since before the birth of Aemon. She felt a dull ache for her dragon on her chest, though having her baby boy against her breasts helped soothe that feeling.

She would have the opportunity to see him soon, as soon as she could be on her feet and fully recovered.

And it didn't take long.

The healer would visit her with some herb remedies to help her feel better. She started walking outside her hut and the other wildling women were happy to see her back on her feet. Some of the older ones gave her advice about her baby, and some of them had made some appropriate fur clothes for her son to wear. They all doted on the little baby as soon as she took him out of their hut.

One day it was sunny and the wind was not so cold, then she decided to venture to where she could sense her dragon was waiting for her.

It was not far from where they were settled. There was a clear nearby the trees, where she found the gigantic shape of her dragon and she felt warmer as she came closer to the heat radiated from his scaly flesh.

"I missed you so much", she told him with her voice cracking with emotion and her eyes tearing up as she spoke.

Her dragon stared at her while bowing his head. Drogon sniffed her skin for a bit and then he bumped his big snout against her hand.

She looked pointedly into the dragon eyes while scratching his black and red scales for a bit. "There is someone I want you to meet."

She lowered the fur that was covering little Aemon's sleeping face. The little baby's cheeks got a soft pink shade at the contact with the air chill, but her baby remained asleep.

Drogon at first was stunned by the sight of the creature. She was amused. Her dragon approached again with caution, while she remained standing at the same spot. Drogon lowered his head, sniffing Aemon at first, and when he picked the dragon scent in his blood, he rubbed his snout on her and the baby while he hummed low.

She was beaming at the sight of her dragon child receiving so well the new one. She patted the beast on the side of his head, and Drogon took as a sign to back down and fly to resume his hunt.

Aemon opened his eyes while she was still smiling at the sight of her remaining dragon flying against the blue sky.

The little one was staring at her. She could say her baby had gotten his hair and eyes from her, but that intense look was totally Jon's. "You like brooding, just like your father", she softly whispered. He was totally a Targaryen in the silver-haired clear-eyed look, but his little eyes had a certain glint that reminded her of the Northern family from Winterfell, and she wasn't sure how she felt about that. She remembered the side-eye looks she used to get from the elder Stark daughter, full of distrust, or the furtive glances she got from the younger one, both of them jealous towards the love their brother had for her. A love that was not enough compared with his honor to stop from killing her.

She shuddered. It was no use to dwell in the past, when she was holding her future in her arms.

Also, not all the Starks were the same.

She thought of that brave Northern girl who captivated her brother enough to drop his duty towards his family and start a war.

She lowered her forehead to rest tenderly against little Aemon's. If Lyanna Stark and her brother Rhaegar hadn't fallen in love, she wouldn't have met the father of her son.

She also thought of Ned Stark. She always thought of him as the Usurper's Dog while she was growing up in Essos running from one place to another with Viserys. However, during her stay in Dragonstone before traveling North, Varys had informed her of what Ned Stark had done while being Hand of the King. She knew how the Lord of Winterfell had defied his friend Robert to prevent them from sending assassins to kill her and her unborn son. Now she realized why he did that. He had allowed his honor to be tainted by pretending to have fathered a bastard to save the life of one Targaryen, now she could understand why he refused to kill another. Thanks to him both her and Jon had survived and their paths had met even when they were brought up in opposite sides of the world.

She walked back to the settlement with little Aemon gurgling and the sound of birds chirping as the sweetest background sound she could imagine.

She was happy to be back spending time with the Free Folk. It seemed that they had taken to her. They reminded her of her Dothraki people, and even if the memory would be hard for her, she tried to make the most of her current state. She learned from them, helped prepare their food, learned to mend furs and in general, learned more about their way of living.

Later that day, she was inside the hut with little Aemon comfortably sleeping on the small wooden cradle Jon had made for him.

Jon entered the hut with a piece of leatherskin wrap in his hands.

"What is it?", she asked him as he approached to her, curious.

"It's a sling carrier, either of us can use it to carry the baby and have our hands free."

She smiled to him, while she was putting it on to test it. "I like it. Thank you."

"You deserve it, you do so much and I just wanted to make it easier for you and as comfortable as possible."

He approached to her with that intense look and a soft smile. He reached out, brushing a hair out of her face.

"I am doing fine. The Free Folk have been really kind to me." She smiled, shyly.

"They've come to see you for what you are." He placed his hand on her cheek, standing really close to her. He had the same look from the dragonglass cave, the same look from the waterfall. The look he always had when he wanted to kiss her.

"I.." she managed to whisper as he leaned in to her mouth. Their lips met and she felt like fire flowing through her veins. A part of her wanted to resist but she couldn't. But then in a flash, the memories of a destroyed throne room covered in ashes came back at full force, bringing the memory of the last kiss they had shared before he stabbed her. She stepped back.

Jon immediately lowered his head. "I am sorry, I shouldn't have..."

She looked at him. "I know. We both are still struggling."

_"If I look back I'm lost."_

She knew she still had that conflict inside, though the part reminding her what Jon had done was growing smaller, whereas the other part would fill out her insides with the need of having him around like she needed air to breathe. She knew she needed to trust him again, as it was before, when she left everything to follow him to the edge of the world and fight his battles.

"If we look back, we are lost. I have learned that over and over. My healing will come in time to be able to trust you again, but you must know I still choose you."

"I know, Dany. I understand you might have not forgiven me yet, because I am not sure I have forgiven myself for what I did to you."

She felt a tear rolling through her cheek. Both of them had gone through their own guilt, but they had still some way to go to learn how to live with it.

"We have a reason now to live with it." She said while she wiped her tears with her hand and looking over Aemon still sleeping.

Jon nodded, silently while his own eyes were full of tears.

She walked towards him and embraced him in a hug. Their issues and struggles would not be fixed overnight, but they still needed to learn to cope and to live with them.

They had a reason now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you go! Some glimpses of happiness for our dear queen and her little family, though they still have to cope with the past. It's taking some time for them, but I hope they can overcome what they have been through. They deserve it.
> 
> I have been asked what about the rest of the characters. To be honest, I do know there was a lot of disservice not only for the character development of both Jon and Daenerys, but as well for others. I am still conflicted about the Starks and I could happily let myself to dwell on a revengeful treatment to their characters but, hey I want to focus on Jon and Dany mostly. As they said in Star Wars: "That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love."


	11. Jon V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon dreams, and tries to reconcile with his origins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies! It took me a little bit longer than expected to post the new chapter, but believe me, hope it's worth the wait!

"The Night King is coming."

He grabbed her arm when he saw her walking towards Drogon, after seeing most of the Dothraki cavalry flaming arakhs to go dark, which meant they might have been overrun by the undead. He knew it was hard for her, but they should stick to the plan they had.

"The dead are already here"

The tone of her voice was stern. She pulled her arm away from his grip and walked to mount Drogon and start burning the undead attacking their armies.

It was all dark and the blizzard brought up by the Night King was not helping at all.

_"They fought together, against their common enemy. Despite their differences, despite their suspicions – together."_

He was full of despair. At one point he was not able to see Daenerys with the blizzard and the darkness involving them. He would resort to scream her name aloud to be able to see her.

Then Rhaegal and the undead Viserion were fighting, and when he thought him and his dragon were about to be defeated by the Night King, the sudden appearance of Drogon and Daenerys saved them. The Night King was unseated and fell down, whereas him and Rhaegal crashed to the ground. He hoped the dragon survived the fall; he wanted to chase the leader of the Army of the Dead to finish this once and for all.

But then the Night King had raised all the dead bodies to join his army of wights and he had been saved by Drogon raining fire over them. He had run to try to save Bran, but then Viserion and other wights had found his way to stop him. He struck them with his sword, trying not to linger seeing their faces in case there was someone he used to know.

But then he saw her face, with icy blue eyes, at the moment he pierced her body with Longclaw, and saw the light going out of those eyes he used to lose himself on.

"No.. no.. it cannot be... Dany!"

"Wake up, wake up."

The soft voice of Daenerys brought him back from the dream.

He turned around and she was lying beside him.

"What were you dreaming about?"

"The Battle of Winterfell."

He was still breathing heavy and lifted himself to sit. Daenerys followed him and gave him a soft kiss over his shoulder.

"You were dead. You're here."

"Of course I am." She had a soft smile over her lips.

"Dany, I am so sorry."

"I know."

"I'll never hurt you ever again." He pleaded.

She leaned towards his face, and whispered to his ear:

"It's too late."

Then she looked into his eyes, and then dropped his gaze down. As he followed suit, with horror he saw his hand gripping the hilt of the dagger, stabbed into her heart, as her nightgown started staining with her blood.

"No, Dany! No, no, no! Please!"

A drop of blood started falling from her mouth, while she said: "Now and always."

"No, Dany! No!!"

He woke up with a jolt.

He was alone in the hut. He could only see the empty cradle Little Aemon had been sleeping for several moons already. It took him a little bit to remember where he was and what had happened. He put on his clothes and fur cape, and got outside of the hut. It was early morning but there were people already up. He walked around looking for her. Tormund had left to go to Castle Black some days ago to get any available resources they could use, so perhaps she was doing any errands or fixing their food to break their fast.

Then she heard her laugh, and saw her walking with Little Aemon attached to her on the sling carrier he had built for her, while a sandy-haired young guy was helping her to carry some water jugs from the nearby spring.

He could see the awe in the eyes of the young man while looking at Daenerys.

_"They will see you for what you are."_

_"I hope I deserve it."_

He had been happy with the freefolk well receiving Daenerys, but seeing her interact with other men who were clearly smitten with her gave him no joy at all.

When she saw him, he gave thanks to the guy and grabbed the jugs herself while she walked towards him and he helped with the water she was carrying.

"Jon! Sorry I didn't wake you up, I fed Aemon and then wanted to get more water from the spring."

He kept walking silent until they reached their hut.

" You should have awakened me." He grunted, finally breaking his silence.

She looked at him, puzzled.

"Why? What happened?"

"Just another nightmare. I dreamt I was having a nightmare."

"A dream inside a dream?", she chuckled. "That's weird."

"I'm fine. I will get ready to go hunting."

She didn't mention anything else, but he could see in her eyes there was a glint of suspicion towards the real cause why he was annoyed.

It didn't take long to come back afloat, unfortunately.

They were coming back to the settlement after having a good hunt. He was looking forward to see her and their baby again. It had been a short period of time but he had gotten so used to be around them. Tormund has asked him if he wanted to go with him back to Castle Black but he declined his invitation. He had gotten really protective to his so-called family, a new pack of his own.

Then he saw her, and that familiar feeling of jealousy started creeping up in his veins, like spreading fire.

The same sandy-haired guy was teaching her to shoot with arrows. She was laughing again, tensing the bow ready to shoot, while the guy was guiding her on how to place correctly her arm and elbow with his hands.

She shot the arrow, which got close to the bullseye of the made-up wooden target the guy had at a distance. An elder sandy-haired woman sitting nearby them with Aemon in her arms started cheering while Daenerys was beaming from her progress learning to shoot and the guy congratulated her, swooning over her. He was standing at a certain distance from where they were. She looked at him but her smile faded when she saw his expression. He guessed he could not mask his current feelings. He walked towards their hut without saying a word.

She entered the hut shortly afterwards, with little Aemon in her arms.

"What is the matter? How was the hunt?"

He walked towards her. "I didn't know you wanted to learn to shoot arrows. Why didn't you ask me to teach you?"

She frowned saying: "I hadn't thought of it, I just made a comment to Sven's mother while I was burping Aemon and then he kindly offered!"

He sneered. "Yes, I saw how kindly he was staring at you and taking any chance he could get to put his hands on you!"

He could see her temper rising by the look of her face.

"Tell me you didn't just say that. Have you taken a leave out of your senses? Are you jealous?"

"I'm just worried about your safety!"

"You should know better, Jon Snow."

She sighed. He looked at her and saw her holding to little Aemon while she tried to calm herself.

Then she placed the baby in his cradle and told him, with a stern look on her face.

"Take care of Aemon, I just fed him. I'll be right back when it's time to feed him again."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to go see Drogon. I just hope that whatever has gotten into your head is gone by the time I come back."

That hadn't gone really well.

He was sitting by a weirwood tree they had found nearby the settlement. Whatever were his feelings towards his Stark legacy, being near the weirwood tree reminded him of Ned Stark and how he was always the figure he grew up admiring, even if back then he thought he might not have been good enough as a son to be legitimised by him as a Stark. He was sitting there, with little Aemon in his arms, and he could not help but think all those days he would sneak into the Godswood in Winterfell to ask the Old Gods to make him a trueborn son, same as Robb. He would ask with all his tender heart to be loved by a mother as he would see Catelyn taking care of her children.

Ghost was sitting by his side, also very protective of his little son, this little dragonwolf.

Jon, bastard son of Eddard. Or Aegon, son of Rhaegar.

Aemon, son of Aegon.

He thought he was quite fortunate to be holding his little son in his arms, half him and half the woman he loved, and to see her enjoy something she thought it was denied to her. He didn't need to tarnish that with his stupid jealousy.

Little Aemon started gurgling and gave him a toothless grin, his violet eyes shining just like his mother's. He felt his heart full of love for his son, and for his mother too.

Both of them were still going through the aftermath of what had happened, of what they had done, but they had so much to take care of.

Especially this little one. He couldn't believe he was wasting his time brooding, as always, instead of enjoying the opportunity he had been given to have a kid of his own and more important, with the woman he truly loved.

He wondered if he would've had the same brooding personality he had while growing up if he had been raised with a loving mother and a father who was closer to him.

This little babe would not inherit a throne or a crown. But he would have something neither Jon nor Dany had. Two loving parents and a family. A home.

There was still snow in the ground, showing a beautiful contrast to the scarlet leaves of the tree on his back. It was cold but little Aemon was comfortably bundled in a fur cover-all his mother had made for him.

"LITTLE CROW!"

He heard the voice of his ginger friend, turned around to where he heard him coming and got a nice surprise.

"Ser Davos!"

The old Onion Knight was walking along Tormund towards the weirwood tree.

A surprise, of course, but a welcome one.

"I can see you did more than just stare at her good heart, son!", the older man jested when he smiled at him.

_"I did what I thought was right, and got murdered for it. Now I'm back. Why?"_

_"I don't know. Maybe we'll never know. What does it matter, you go on, you fight for as long as you can, you clean up as much as their shit as you can."_

_"I don't know how to do that. I thought I did but... I failed."_

_"Good. Now go fail again."_

He couldn't believe the old knight was there. He knew, after he had dismissed him when Ser Davos made his intentions clear to follow him, that he had joined the Small Council to rule the Six Kingdoms, but what he was doing there?

He stood up and took some strides to meet Ser Davos halfway and give him a hug. He had missed his old friend.

"I thought you would be at King's Landing."

"I was, in fact," replied Ser Davos. "But an old man like me can get tired of dealing with the same old shit and take off to enjoy his few years left on a better way. And I was also worried about you. You didn't look good when you left to go back to the Wall. You were suffering and I was afraid you would end it by your own hand."

"I'm glad I didn't." His son gurgled and he looked at him smiling while he was bouncing the little baby in his arms.

"Tormund told me about her. This little one is basically here thanks to the Lord of Light bringing both of his parents back."

He smiled to Ser Davos while the old man dedicated all his attentions to the little one, ruffling his soft white-silver curls. Little Aemon smiled at him and stretched his arms towards him to signal he wanted Ser Davos to hold him.

"You are such a cute little fella!", the old knight said, holding the little boy in his arms, while the baby reached out a chubby hand in return to pull his beard, making the Onion Knight have a hearty laugh.

Dany was surprised and a little uneasy when she came back to the settlement and saw Ser Davos. The last time he had seen the old knight had been from afar, in the aftermath of what she had done in King's Landing.

"It's good to see you again, Your Grace." Ser Davos greeting was truthful.

She sighed. "I'm not a Queen anymore, Ser Davos. And after all I did..."

"You will always be a queen. The Queen many people chose to follow. The Queen many chose to die for."

He saw a silent tear fell on Daenerys face.

"I never had the chance to tell you this, but I am really sorry for what happened to Missandei of Naath. She was always kind with us, and she didn’t deserve to die”, he said while holding her hands as an assurance of his condolences.

She looked down and sighed. "Her last word was "Dracarys". I got it then as a sign that our enemies only deserved fire and blood. I couldn't see perhaps she was referring to that time in Astapor when by saying Dracarys I liberated her and the legions of Unsullied. I asked the soldiers to kill the slave masters but harm no children. I still don't understand how I could have forgotten that, and I do carry the weight of what I did in King's Landing."

His old friend looked at her with empathy. "We all make mistakes. You still have a good heart, Your Grace. I noticed this one staring at it quite a few times."

She chuckled.

Ser Davos chose to stay with them, and after that time by the weirwood tree, Jon had a notion that took root in his mind and started taking shape as the days went by and his old friend came to enhance their lives with his presence around them. He would dote on his baby as a grandfather would on his grandson.

One night, when they were sitting by the fire while Dany was feeding Aemon inside the hut, he told Ser Davos:

"I got to ask you something, Ser Davos. You once told me that perhaps we will never know why the Lord of Light chose to bring me back. But either we find or not, we can choose to believe in a reason. I never thought I would father a child, and I swore to myself I would never father a bastard. Not that it really matters with the freefolk but it matters to me. I wanted to ask if you can marry me and Daenerys by the weirwood tree, if she is to have me."

He could see by the expression on the face of his friend that he immediately approved of the idea.

"I knew I should have told you first about the proposal instead to those shitty advisors in Winterfell." he joked.

"What proposal?"

"I told Tyrion and Varys before the Battle that you two should get married. Of course that before everything that happened and the revelations."

"I know, I didn't take it well and my Stark upbringing conflicted me to that idea, but after everything that happened I guess I don't care anymore. Perhaps it's my Targaryen side talking." He gave him an amused half-smile.

Davos told him, as a reassurance: "Do you remember what you once told Theon? I'll tell you something like that. You don't have to choose. You are a Stark and a Targaryen. No matter if your siblings treated you like shit in the end, you have the blood of the mother who died while giving you life and the uncle that raised you like his son. You're a dragon but you are a wolf too. And if you want to reconcile your Stark side by getting married by the Old Gods, I'll stand with whatever you choose." He placed his hand in his shoulder, with a big smile, and then added:

"You two deserve all the happiness you can get in this shitty world. You have fought other people's wars, and all you have gotten out of it is suffering. You deserve to be happy."

He left his friend and got into their hut.

"Are you alright?"

He heard Daenerys' voice. He turned around and saw her pacing around with little Aemon in her arms, after feeding him.

The little baby burped and left some gurgles out, while Dany looked at him lovingly.

"With Ser Davos arrival, I didn't have a chance to apologize for what happened before he got here. I am sorry."

"It's alright, Jon. All I ask from you is to trust me. Believe in me as I believe in you. I do trust you, even after everything that happened."

"Do you, really?" He walked towards her.

"Yes, I do."

He felt like that moment, ages ago, when he was standing in front of her cabin door when they were sailing to Winterfell. He had to gather all his courage to ask her what he had just told Ser Davos.

"Then marry me."

She had a curious and surprised expression in her beautiful face, while her baby was slowly falling sleep while she was holding him.

"What?"

"There is no day I don't regret what I did. There is no day I don’t pray that you forgive me. But we deserve to be happy. My watch ended when my sworn brothers put a knife in my heart. And I know I was foolish enough to listen to Tyrion. He told me I was the shield who guarded the realm of men. But what about what I wanted? Fuck the realm. All it matters for me is you and our son. And I swore myself I would never father a bastard."

He saw she frowned at that last part.

"So do you think you should marry me out of obligation?"

"No. I don't want to marry you because I have to. I want to marry you because I love you and nothing matters more to me than you."

He was going to add something, but he was cut off by her lips kissing his. All felt right as he wrapped his arms around her and their baby. And this time she didn't pull away.

"Have you forgiven me?" He looked at her eyes with all the longing he had in his eyes.

She smiled. "The moment I first saw the face of our son I realized I couldn't keep hating on you anymore when you gave me this." She softly kissed the top of the head of the baby sleeping placidly in her arms.

He hugged her while he rested his forehead in hers.

All was well.

If this was a dream, he would kill the man who tried to wake him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of feels while writing this. Of course a lot of influences from other fandoms you might find on it *winks*. Just trying to make some justice to our beloved characters.
> 
> And yeah, I knew after that interlude for Ser Davos that I wanted to have some "grandpa Davos" on this story. 
> 
> Comments are always appreciated!!! :D


	12. Daenerys VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The White Wedding Jon and Daenerys deserved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the kind comments! I really appreciate the feedback you guys have given me!  
> Well, now we see from Dany's POV her experience about her wedding to Jon. Hope you like it!

_"If I'm going to rule in Westeros, I need to make alliances. The best way to make alliances is with marriage."_

Ironic that she didn't need to make alliances anymore, but she wanted to marry him.

They had fallen asleep in each other arms, talking about everything and nothing at the same time.

Jon had told her: "I never felt like I had a place in the world. I have been a bastard, with no rights, trying to earn some glory being the shield that guarded the realms of men, but it only gave me suffering. I lost friends, I wasn't there for my father, or the one I thought my father. I lost the one who I grew up as my brother. I lost my mentors, I lost my first love. I even lost my life. And then when I thought I was figuring everything out, I found my life was a lie. I was not the one I thought I was. And I acted stupidly, falling into the trap of what I thought it was right, into the ones I thought were part of my family. But same as I had changed, my remaining siblings had changed too. At the end, I did the worst thing I could have done to protect them, and all I got was to be sent away, back to the beginning, and with the terrible weight of what I had done."

"At least you had a family and a place to live. I didn't."

_"All my life, I've known one goal: the Iron Throne. Taking it back from the people who destroyed my family, and almost destroyed yours; my war was against them. Until I met Jon. Now I'm here, half a world away, fighting Jon's war, alongside him."_

_"I'm here because I love your brother... and I trust him. And I know he's true to his word."_

She lowered her gaze.

"I know everyone thought by my words and actions that all I cared about was the throne. But I think it was because I had no more family left. I had lost it all. I thought coming back to Westeros would give me some sense of belonging. But it didn't. Just the idea of finding my home would make me sad, because it seemed I would never find it."

Jon touched her cheek softly.

"Though at the same time I would think back then that I would be a better ruler than my brother. If you thought my reaction at the crypts was terrible, I cannot imagine what would have been his about finding out someone had a better claim than him!", she chuckled.

"I'd wish I had met him anyway", Jon sighed.

The light inside the hut was getting brighter. Dany looked at Jon, and his curls had a brownish coloring with the light passing through them.

"Really?"

"When I was younger me and my siblings, especially Arya, would love to play pretending we were the Targaryens of old. I would always choose to be Prince Daeron, the Young Dragon, whereas Arya would choose no other than Visenya Targaryen. If only I had known I was a Targaryen myself!"

"Guess that if you'd had silver hair, that would've been easier!"

He smiled softly. She was happy that he was more acknowledging of his Targaryen legacy that he had been before.

It didn't take long for the wedding to take place.

Ser Davos knew not how to congratulate Jon, his chosen surrogate son, nor praise Daenerys enough.

Tormund could speak his happiness for his little crow friend by the huge grin in his face. He had also come to appreciate the Dragon Queen as a strong and fierce woman who didn't care to get her hands dirty working and helping his fellow freefolk.

The other freefolk were excited about having the opportunity to witness a Northern wedding. They usually did not care much for those kind of traditions, but loved and appreciated Jon and now Daenerys to be looking forward about it. They saw her now as one of their own.

But Daenerys - how were her feelings to be described? And Jon's, from the look in his eyes?

The only one who was slightly oblivious of what was happening around him was the little baby they both loved the most.

"Are you happy?"

"This will be actually the first wedding I'm looking forward to." She said with tears in her eyes. Tears of happiness.

"I'll see you in a bit." he said before leaving the hut to walk towards the weirwood tree.

At first she felt bittersweet that their child would grow up far from their Targaryen legacy. But that was also an opportunity for them to start a new chapter, to write a new story of their own.

She had a memory of her first wedding, the scared timid girl she was. She thought about how so many things changed for her. From living at the shadow of his brother and being practically sold by him to achieve his purpose, to have literally grasped the throne but not ruled as she had resolved to do. But what was a choice, anyway? Get to a point where you have to choose one path from the other.

She remembered Jon had a choice. What if he hadn’t do what he did? Would the weight of a crown have changed yet totally, to turn her into something totally different to what she really was? Jorah would always tell her she had a gentle heart. But decisions taken for the sake of power are never easy. And as it seemed, everyone in Westeros, or at least most of the people, had in mind only to play their own games to maintain the state of things. There was no room for idealistic people like her, or even Jon. She could see as much with the Northerners, who had looked her foreign armies and advisors with disdain, and even herself, who had been born in Westerosi soil.

She remembered what Jorah told her, right after Drogo and Rhaego died, that she could sell the dragon eggs and go live the rest of her days as a rich lady in the Free Cities. What if she had listened?

Now she understood that, when Jon did what he did, he saved her from herself. Of course she could have kept hating him for what he did, looking for revenge only but it was not worth it. There was no use of thinking of what it has not been.

Drogo had been her first love, but not her last. Drogo had touched her heart when she made him fall in love with her through the eyes, but only Jon had even owned it. So much that he had even put a knife on it.

She realized the dangers of power. She pitied those who lived without love. She pitied herself, when instead of leaving everything and look out for her happiness, for a new beginning, chose to stay on a destructive path of fear that got her killed in the worst way possible.

She was brought back to reality from her ruminations by the arrival of several freefolk women who had asked if they could help her to get ready for her wedding.

Sven's mother and other young girl were sitting nearby with Aemon in the hut while two other women were helping her to brush her hair and make some braids, nothing too elaborate but they wanted to help anyway as she had taught them how to do braids like the ones she had favoured back from Essos.

A little blonde girl entered with a bunch of wildflowers she had found near the settlement. She was quite shy, but walked towards Dany and offered the bunch of flowers.

"They are beautiful! Thank you!", she smiled softly to the little girl.

She noticed a few small blue roses within the bunch. Perhaps a rare, yet beautiful gift for the remaining days of winter. Just like the winter roses her brother Rhaegar had given to Lyanna at Harrenhal. It was a coincidence, but she couldn't help but think of how fitting would be to marry their son with winter roses having some part at their wedding.

She was wearing her blue dress robe she had brought from Volantis with her with her white fur cape above.

She had asked Tormund to lead her. She had no other family around, and her former friends were not there with her. But she had made some new, including the ginger freefolk leader, who had come to appreciate her as part of his people now.

It was getting dark already, but according to the tradition Jon had told her, the guests would carry torches to light the area surrounding the weirwood tree, while the groom waited by the heart tree with them for the bride to arrive. Even so, the remaining light would show the beautiful scenery around the weirwood tree, with a light layer of snow covering the ground. She thought it would be a beautiful white wedding, like the one she would allow herself to dream of during their nights together traveling to Winterfell. She didn't actually follow any gods but she knew Jon followed the Old Gods of the Forest as part of his Stark upbringing.

She kept walking, led by Tormund to the heart tree. She could see Jon's face, with such a smile so impossible to believe in the face of a man who was better known for brooding, that she felt her heart was overflowing. Especially all the hardships both of them went through. She stopped at a certain distance.

"Who comes before the Old Gods this night?" She could hear the voice of Ser Davos, asking in a warm way.

Tormund looked briefly back to her, and she nodded with a soft smile.

"Daenerys Stormborn, of the House Targaryen, comes here to be wed. A woman grown, strong and fierce, trueborn and noble. She comes to beg the blessing of the Gods. Who comes to claim her?"

Jon was wearing his fur cape as he used to but with his locks tied up in the same type of bun he had when she met him. He replied:

"Jon Snow, born as Aegon of House Targaryen and Stark. Who gives her?"

He winked to her - or better said, tried to - while she smiled broadly to him acknowledging his Targaryen heritage in front of everyone. Not that the Freefolk would really care, but it was a big step for him.

"Tormund Giantsbane, of the Freefolk."

Jon walked towards her and they held their hands together.

"Your Grace, do you take this man?"

"I take this man. I am his and he is mine, from this day until the end of my days."

Jon replied: "And I take this woman as my wife. I am hers and she is mine, from this day until the end of my days."

They didn't care if they changed slightly the way the ceremony should have been done in the first place. It was their own ceremony anyway. Was it perhaps their way to honor that saying about Targaryens not really caring about any gods?

They knelt with their hands joined.

She wished there was a way to keep these memories evergreen. What she knew was that she would not be able to forget what she felt every time he looked into her eyes.

The sour memory of his betrayal was still there, but just like a small dot in the distance.

She could see Jon, telling her softly while looking at her eyes. "Avy jorrāelan."

She felt truly moved by him remembering how to say "I love you" in High Valyrian. She didn't care if she was supposed to do it, but leaned in and kissed him. As if he knew, their son started gurgling loud as if he were approving. All the Freefolk started cheering and they stood up together.

They went after the wedding back to the settlement, where they had prepared a feast with the game they had hunted and fish they had gone to catch to Hardhome for the occasion. They had ale and of course the sour goat's milk Tormund and other freefolk would favour.

Some of the freefolk had used their time away from the war to go back into making rudimentary musical instruments to cheer their spirits, so they used it for the special event at hand.

They had no tables or special seats but there was no need. She and Jon were seated in what could pass as the main seats, but they would go around to receive the good wishes from everyone.

She thought of the first wedding she had attended to, way too different. That Dothraki wedding where she was getting married to Khal Drogo, where she was scared, frightened, and barely said a word to her first husband. Where people would dance, fuck and kill in the middle of the feast, at the rhythm of the drums. She smiled thinking of how first impressions might be deceiving.

This wedding was different. The freefolk were happy roaming and moving around like nomads, but in this case they had different ideas of how to have fun. Happy tunes were played, some would cheer and drink, some would dance along the music.

She also remembered with fondness that during that wedding she had met Ser Jorah, her faithful friend, and received her dragon eggs as a gift. So many things had changed, indeed.

When Little Aemon started falling asleep on Tormund's arms, Daenerys tried to stand up to take the babe back to the hut, but Tormund shook his head saying:

"I'll take care of the little dragon, you guys go have your wedding night." He winked with a huge grin while Jon was blushing at his blunt comment.

Most of the remaining freefolk who were still awake might have been too drunk to notice them walking towards their hut.

She thought of the time she was in a similar situation what it seemed ages ago, with the sea breeze caressing her skin, scared to be left alone with that unknown warlord she had just married, while all the Dothraki would stare at her.

_"Make him happy"_

He remembered the crude remark her brother had told her before she left with Drogo for their wedding night.

 _"Anha vos ochilok ma shafkoa vosecchi. M’anha vo vayyok vo yal che ha shafkea che h’eshnakaan. Avvos vosma shekh yola she jimma ma drivoe she titha."_  
_("I will not lie with you. And I will bear no children, for you or anyone else. Not until the sun rises in the west and sets in the east.")_

She took away her fur cape and turned around to see Jon removing his.

"I told once to the khal I was presented to that would not lie with him or bear a child again, but here we are."

"Here we are, indeed." He replied, with a soft smile, approaching to her while he started kissing her.

"I loved the winter roses." He said, touching one of the flowers that were adorning her braided silver hair.

"One of the little girls found them."

"Just like...", he hesitated for a bit. "Like the roses my father gave to my mother in Harrenhal."

She smiled brightly.

"So would you name me your Queen of Love and Beauty too?"

He was about to reply, but she cut him by kissing him. He had called her his queen enough.

A lot of things had changed from her first wedding to this one. From that first night in the boat to this night. From the crypts to this moment. Some more visible than others.

Like her scar.

He saw the scar his knife had left, right below her left breast. A red, angry mark, just like the one he had.

Now they had matching scars. He kissed that scar and washed it with his tears.

She hugged him and kissed the top of his head while moving her fingers through his black curls.

"It's alright. All is well. We are here."

"Together."

"Always."

But there were things that hadn't changed, whatsoever. Like the way she felt when she was in his arms.

He placed his hand over hers, as measuring them.

She interlaced her fingers between his.

“There were moments when I just wanted to die. I felt like I couldn’t live with what I have done to you.”

She shuddered.

“I’m glad you didn’t do anything foolish. I remember seeing your scars for the first time in Eastwatch. I felt awful, I just realized I could have not even met you at all.”

He gave her a soft smile, while kissing her forehead.

“Are you happy?”

She asked him, with a knowing smile, while he chuckled at her asking him the same question he did to her.

“Mmm aye, though I could be happier.”

“What?”

She feigned getting angry at him, and threw him a questioning look.

“What else would you want?”

He looked at her, like thinking about it.

“What about a little girl?”

She laughed. He looked at her with a huge grin in his face.

“Then you’d better get to work, Jon Snow!”

He chuckled and then kissed her deeply.

In his arms, after being one again, she felt at peace.

She couldn’t delete the past or go back to change her choices.

She knew she shouldn’t look back. She knew she didn’t need to.

She felt home now.

She was home now.

And she never wanted to leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of callbacks to her first wedding, and to her own journey. I did some research about the customary traditions the freefolk had regarding marriage but it's not exactly what the people living south of the Wall would follow. So this time I wanted to give both J&D some freedom, especially to Jon to have something closer to his Stark legacy but embracing at the same time his Targaryen side.
> 
> Comments are truly appreciated!!


	13. Interlude II: Davos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ser Davos reflects by the fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge apologies! This week has been so intense and my allergies had not been kind at all! Feeling better now, so the next chapter should be up shortly.

The little baby was already asleep. Tormund was a good childminder, for what it seemed, Davos smiled.

He was working diligently on a piece of wood that was taking shape. He remembered the last one he made, with the form of a stag. This time, he was making two, one shaped as a little dragon, another shaped as a small wolf.

If a few months ago, someone had told him he would be doing this, sitting by the fire making a wooden toy for a Targaryen little boy born to such a remarkable couple of two Targaryens who were brought back from the dead, he wouldn't have believed it. But there he was.

He thought of the moment he arrived again to Castle Black, looking for Jon. He had decided that a man can talk so much about sewage and brothels after having fought the undead and witnessed so much injustice without getting tired of it, and that his concerns were far North, thinking of the exiled former king who was condemned to pay for the most heinous crime he could imagine a man can commit.

_"I'm not a learned man, but is there a difference between kill and sacrifice?"_

The most ironic thing is that the rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms had sacrificed his love for what it seemed right at the moment. By the look of Jon's face when he saw him in his prison cell, it was not.

He was afraid the former King in the North would not stand to live with the guilt and take his own life.

When he arrived to the Night's Watch main castle, he was scared that something like that had actually happened.

The place looked eerie and had a lot of bittersweet memories for him. He saw the same spot where he found Jon's body when he had been stabbed by his fellow comrades.

He walked through the library, where he could still hear the voice of little Shireen reading aloud and showing him books he could read.

He stood by the chambers where he pleaded to the Red Woman Melisandre to bring back Jon from the dead.

_"I'm not a devout man, obviously. Seven gods, drowned gods, tree gods, it's all the same. I'm not asking the Lord of Light for help. I'm asking the woman who showed me that miracles exist."_

He looked up to the top of the Wall, where he and Stannis had tried to convince Jon to bend the knee to him so he could legitimize him.

How different things would have been if the bastard son of Eddard Stark had accepted?

No point in wondering about the what-ifs. What concerned him in that very same moment was the fact that Jon Snow was nowhere to be found.

He didn't know how long had he been there when he heard some noises coming from the tunnel to beyond the wall.

Tormund and some other wildlings had arrived and Ser Davos was pleased to see him.

"You'll need something to drink before I tell you", was the frank reply he had from Tormund when he asked him about Jon.

"Where is Jon?", he insisted after he had taken some ale, after Tormund tried to convince him to drink his famed sour goat milk.

"He is with us. When we left to go North, he came with us."

"And how is he?". Davos asked, concerned about the wellbeing of his friend.

"Drink." Tormund nodded at the mug he had in his hand.

"Why?"

"Believe me, you will need it."

After Ser Davos obliged, Tormund started by recounting how Jon had tried to embrace his new life with the free folk as he had lived before with them, but this time a shadow of pain followed him wherever he went. He was suffering, brooding more than usual and keeping it to himself most of the time. He was also concerned about him, and even when Tormund would give him his space, he would keep an eye on him. But suddenly, the most unexpected thing happened. They heard a dragon shrieking not far from where they were, and then they saw him flying away, to the near mountain. When he looked for Jon, he saw Daenerys standing in front of him.

"If I hadn't seen the little crow with his little pecker coming back from the dead, I would have thought I was going mad. But there she was, Dragon Queen back from the dead and her belly swollen with child. No need to wonder who the father was, guess the pecker worked anyway!", Tormund laughed at his own crude joke.

Davos was speechless. He saw Jon coming back from the dead, but due to the circumstances of how Daenerys had died, he would not think her resurrection to be something possible, and even more if she had been with child at the moment of her death. His heart pained even more for Jon, who clearly didn't know about that when he killed her. Had he found out, he would have gone mad and kill himself with grief of knowing he had killed his own child.

"Is she still there?"

"Aye, her and her baby. Beautiful little dragon took after her, silver hair and all. They called him Aemon, like the old maester."

He couldn't believe she was alive and that she had remained living with the Free Folk to have her baby in these lands. From what he knew of her, she was a strong woman, not a fragile damsel or a delicate queen, so she would clearly adapt to the harsh conditions of the real North.

After Tormund had gathered what they had come looking for, Ser Davos joined him to go back to their settlement and see Jon.

And what a surprise he had seen.

The gaunt, hollowed man he had tried to follow North to his exile was no more. The man standing in front of him had a healthier and happier countenance, and was holding a little baby boy, blood of his blood, with the face of the sun in winter and shining with the promise of better days.

_"What do you think of her?"_

_"Who?"_

_"I believe you know of whom I speak."_

_"I think she has a good heart."_

_"A good heart? I've noticed you staring at her good heart!"_

He saw the former Queen, dressed in simpler garments, adequate for the climate, but with a beauty shining through all of it. Her countenance was softer than what she usually showed back in her reigning days, but clearly embracing the change she had gone through. She received him humbly, as if concerned of his opinion towards her after what had happened in King's Landing after the bells had rung.

_"(sound of bells ringing) They are welcoming their new king."_

_"I've never known bells to mean surrender!"_

It was as if Tyrion, the once clever acting Hand of the King he had been when Stannis attacked, had forgotten that too.

Anyhow, if there was any residual piece of judgment towards her in him, had disappeared at the sight of how happy Jon looked around her and their little baby. He had gotten so attached to the little boy and the boy had adopted him as a grandfather. He looked at Jon as a son, thus he was honoured when he had asked to marry them according to the Northern ways.

"Any nerves?" Davos asked while they were standing in front of the weirwood tree, waiting for the bride.

Jon smiled. "I am not nervous about marrying her, I am nervous about waking up and discovering this all had been a dream."

"You have been through harder things other than fearing to be dreaming. Perhaps you can't still believe it, but you keep moving on while you can."

"Guess we both have been through so much, that parts of what happened don't feel real."

"Then just pay attention to the ones that do. You are where you are supposed to be, Jon. Enjoy it, you both deserve it."

"Thanks, Ser Davos, your trust and confidence have been always really important for me."

"I see you like a son, I lost mine in the Battle of Blackwater and young Shireen, though not mine, I cared for that little girl and she was taken away."

And now, hours later, him and Tormund were there, taking care of the little one while his parents were enjoying some time together.

He remembered that conversation he had with Tyrion after the Battle of Winterfell.

_"Last time I saw her, told her I would kill her if I saw her again"_

_"Did you?"_

_"Never got the chance. She did it to herself. Or her God did it to her. The Lord of Light. He played his game, we fought his war and win, and then, he fucks off, no signs, no blessings, who knows what he wants?"_

_"I don't imagine thinking about that subject won't leave you any happier than before."_

_"What if I'm not trying to be happy?"_

He chuckled. His opinion about Melisandre would be always conflicted, but he guessed the Lord of Light, as unknown his reasons still were for everyone, had again shown a helping hand to them.

He might have not been trying to be happy back then, but at this moment, he was.

He was happy to be more than just an advisor or a friend for Jon, also a much-needed father figure.

And he was happy to be there for him. Who knew what would be coming for them, if fate would allow them to live in peace with their little family up North, away from the intrigues and the game they were too good to be able to play.

He put down his knife and looked at the finished wooden dragon. Aemon would surely enjoy playing with it. He hoped it was not the only child of them he would make toys for in the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked this! I wanted to include a little bit of more details regarding Ser Davos' motivations regarding joining Jon up North but without dwelling too much into them. There are some assumptions I made (like nobody remained in Castle Black since the Night Watch was pretty much gone during the War against the Night King) but just wanted to confirm.
> 
> Thank you very much for your kind feedback! Comments and kudos are truly appreciated!


	14. Jon VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon embraces his life and looks for forgiveness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there!! Well, I had thought of finish this story like in one more chapter but had some more ideas and I hope you like this. It does not help all this fantastic fan art I keep seeing around, so let's dwell a little bit on the life of these two who deserve some happiness on their own.

_"If I don't return at least you won't have to deal with the King in the North anymore."_

_"I've grown used to him."_

He woke up, and for a moment he thought he was back in that boat.

She was sleeping soundly in his arms, while his fingers were touching her soft long silver tresses.

He enjoyed watching her sleep, with her young face free from any concerns or fears. She'd had a fair share of pain and suffering through her short life, he wanted her to enjoy a little bit. Even if it was far from castles and palaces, from comfortable places and armies who would die for her, he knew she deserved to live. He now knew.

Sometimes he wished things had gone through differently. If he hadn't asked for her help and she had gone to siege first Kings Landing, perhaps she would have won her throne first before fighting the Night King. If she had not listened to her advisors and protected her allies instead of storming a deserted Casterly Rock.

He dismissed those thoughts. Her intentions were too pure for the game of thrones everyone seemed to be playing in Westeros. Everyone, included his sister, or better said cousin Sansa. Now she had what she always wanted. To become a queen.

But that was behind of them now. They were now far away from all of it. He would wonder every now and then if that was enough for her, since for a lot of time her struggle was to get back what it was taken from their family (not hers only, also his family). And even if he had come to terms with both legacies, he couldn't help but wonder if there would be a moment when he would have to choose between being a Stark and being a Targaryen. He hope not, but he knew now that no matter what, he would choose her and their little family. No matter what choices he had taken before, he had learned his lesson well.

He was lost in his thoughts since he didn't notice her eyes looking at him.

"Brooding so early, are we?"

He smiled softly and met her gaze.

"Didn't want to wake you up."

She just kissed him softly as a response.

He was grateful she had forgiven him, he would not be able to forget what he had done, but he could live with it with her forgiveness.

"I can't believe you remembered how to say "I love you" in Valyrian during the wedding," she whispered to his lips, smiling. Days had passed after the wedding and they were walking in the woods, while Ser Davos was happy to take care of Aemon back in the settlement. He had almost slipped on a patch of ice, and she took his hand laughing to catch him, so he grabbed her in her arms and kissed her to stop her from making fun of him.

"I am a quick learner. But someone promised to teach me and I'm looking forward to learn more."

She chuckled. "I will do that with one condition: I teach you Valyrian, you will teach me to fight with a sword and to shoot with a bow properly."

"Whatever my queen commands."

He noticed her smile faded with that comment.

"I am sorry Dany, I am so sorry", he said holding her.

"It's alright. I've accepted what happened, but sometimes I realise it's still there. I can live with it. I just want to be able to defend myself and protect my family."

He frowned. "Who are you afraid of? The freefolk are happy that we are with them. They would do no harm to us."

"I'm not afraid of the freefolk, but I am afraid anything can come to try to harm us. Last time I had to use a sword I had no proper training on how to use it, and I just keep thinking if I had, I would have been able to save Ser Jorah." She lowered her gaze, sad.

He took her chin and lifted her face to meet her eyes.

"Whatever comes, we will face it together."

"Always." She replied.

He held her in his embrace.

"But if we are going to face it together, I still want to be able to fight and defend our family."

A warrior queen through and through, he smiled thinking.

_"What kind of queen am I if I'm not willing to risk my life to fight them?"_

"That is why I want to go again to Castle Black to check that everything is still as I left it. I think they were planning to leave me alone and Tyrion suggested the Night Watch to at least keep me from the wrath of the ones asking for my head, but we can never be so sure."

"I know. Just promise you will be back soon. Or I will fly myself in Drogon to look for you."

He chuckled.

"It won't be long. Hey, I can even look in Maester Aemon's library for any High Valyrian books for you to teach me!"

She smiled.

"But anyhow, that's why I want to make sure you two will stay here as protected as possible."

She had insisted it wasn't necessary, but he knew he needed to face her dragon again. He hadn't dared to come near Drogon since that fateful day in the Throne Room back in King's Landing. Then, he had expected Drogon to burn him for killing his mother, but he didn't. That didn't ensure the expectation of a good encounter between them both.

Ser Davos would go with him and she would stay with Tormund and Ghost taking care of her and Little Aemon.

They reached a clearing near a small waterfall. He smiled thinking it looked similar to the one he had taken Dany back in Winterfell.

Drogon arrived shortly. It was not as worse as he expected.

The eyes of the dragon were fixated on him, and he could see it was close to release his fire on him at any moment. Daenerys approached to Drogon and started whispering, and it seemed to calm him a little bit. He took the opportunity to get slowly closer to the dragon.

He took off his glove as he had done a while ago in the cliffs of Dragonstone, and started talking softly:

"It's me, it's Jon. Please forgive me, Drogon. I shouldn't have done what I did. But your mother has forgiven me. I would die before causing her any harm again. Can you forgive me?"

Step by step he got closer to the snout until he was touching it softly. The dragon blinked and accepted his apologies.

"I need you to take care of her and your little brother. Can you do that for me?"

Drogon fixed his gaze on him. He started with a soft purr, and then he pushed him with his snout, causing him to fall back in the ground, while Daenerys started laughing.

He grunted while he was standing up, and she approached to him while Drogon took off flying.

_"It's cold up here for a southern girl."_

_"So keep your queen warm."_

She was still laughing when he grabbed her in his arms.

"Amused?" he teased, prodding her gently in the side. She caught his wrist.

"Don't start with that," she warned, trying to contain her laugh. He caught her lips in a kiss to make her stop.

"We should go back", she took a breath while he unwillingly obliged.

They reached to their settlement where they found Ser Davos holding Little Aemon while the little toddler was trying to take some steps around. The little boy gave out a shriek of joy at the glance of his parents coming back and he felt his heart swell with joy at the sight of Dany running towards him and lifting him up in the air with a huge grin in her face, while their son was giggling madly at his mother kissing his little face. The sound of her laughter and his son's giggles filled him with warmth and he thought he'd never heard a more beautiful sound or seen anything more beautiful than this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you have enjoyed this little chapter! I wanted to see more of Jon and Dany having some bliss and perhaps domestic happiness, but aware of what the world around them could bring them in a future.
> 
> Kudos and comments are truly appreciated!!


	15. Interlude: Tormund

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tormund reflects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there!! I have been a little bit absent due to vacations, work and a little bit of writer's block but here I am. This is a short interlude because I wanted to have some perspective from our favourite freefolk. The story is mostly done, but I thought an interlude would be nice for Tormund and his perspective regarding Jon and Daenerys.

_"He's prettier than both of my daughters, but he knows how to fight."_

The Dragon Queen was practicing with the bow and arrows while he was taking care of the little dragon, who now was mostly giving his first steps.

"Have you thought about leaving, Dragon Queen?"

She turned around and looked at him.

"I mean, have you ever thought to go back and fight those fuckers to get back what was yours?"

She looked at him sadly and dropped his gaze.

"I wanted to get back what had been taken from my family. But I never felt at home in the South as I have felt here with Jon, our baby and the Freefolk."

He grinned to her while holding Aemon over his shoulders causing the little toddler to shriek enthusiastically.

"You are one of us now. You, the little crow and this little dragon."

 _"I should have thrown you from the top of the Wall, boy!"_  
_"Aye. You should have."_

To have fought alongside Jon Snow was an honor for him. Once foes, now friends, Tormund Giantsbane had come to respect the bravery from the former Lord Commander and then to appreciate him as a friend when called by the other crows to defend his body from the mutineers who had stabbed him and left him dead in the cold.

He told Daenerys: "I still remember when I met the little crow. He was taken inside of the hut to be introduced to Mance Ryder, but he thought I was what they called the King Beyond the Wall and he knelt in front of me!".

"At least he didn't have a problem to kneel with you, he didn't want to kneel in front of me at first, even when he came to me asking for my help to fight the undead.", Daenerys chuckled.

_"You spent too much time with us, Jon Snow. You can never be a kneeler again."_

He didn't really get all this trouble about kings and queens and who had to kneel to who. But thinking it twice, not every man or woman pretending to be a ruler would do what Daenerys had done for them, flying her dragons so far away to save them from the Army of the Dead. He had felt like an idiot when Jon had told him the struggle the young queen had gone through after helping to defeat the Night King and nobody actually thanking her for it. Even him had praised his friend loudly for riding a dragon as a truthful King, when he had heard how Daenerys had been the one who had brought them to life, when stepping into the funeral pyre with the dragon eggs.

And he did reproach himself about that. He remembered that day, when he was almost dragged to the bottom of the lake by a bunch of wights and his other comrades were about to be defeated by so many undead, and then he could see and feel the fire blazing from the sky and then he could not believe his eyes when he saw three huge dragons flying around the sky burning dozens of wights to save them. Then he saw the biggest of the dragons with a silver-haired beauty riding him, and immediately the little crow pushed him aside to have a better look. If only he could have seen the eyes of his friend, he would have realized sooner Jon Snow had fallen in love with the Dragon Queen he had bent the knee to, as he had found out later.

 _"Snow, did you love her?"_  
_"..."_  
_"She loved you."_  
_"She told you?"_  
_"No. All she ever talked about was killing you. That's how I know."_

When he had said farewell to Jon at Winterfell, he had been quite cheeky with what he had told him: "You've got the North in you. The real North." His friend was madly in love with Daenerys and all he seemed to do with his words was to discard that as a random bout of desire compared to what supposedly was the true love his friend had found first with his fellow Freefolk Ygritte. However, the pain Jon had shown after losing her in the Battle of Castle Black was nothing compared to the state his friend was when he was sent back to the Wall, after killing Daenerys, trying to adapt to his new situation but lost in his grief. Same as Davos had told him before, he was afraid the little crow would decide to join the Targaryen queen in the afterlife by his own hand.

But he guessed the little crow was quite lucky not only to have been brought back from the dead back then, he was also lucky to have his love brought back too, with their unborn child.

_"You have to keep moving, that's the secret. Walking's good, fighting's better, fucking's best."_

A few moons later, he saw the Dragon Queen had been improving in her sword fighting thanks to the training Jon had provided her. He could see the fire in her eyes, and the spark of having a reason to live and wanting to be prepared to defend herself and her own. He'd watch them together, while the little crow was teaching her to fight as she showed to be a quick learner, his hands covering hers while he showed her the proper fighting stance. They seemed as they could not keep their hands off each other, he smiled.

He was happy for his friend. Not everyone was so lucky to find a strong and brave woman like he did.

Of course, his thoughts drifted to the big woman. He remembered her huge smile and her eyes full of happy tears when that southern kneeler she favoured more named her a knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Of course, that after him telling her that he was no king but he would knight her ten times over.

_"The crows killed him because he spoke for the Free Folk when no other Southerner would. He died for us. If we're not willing to do the same for him, then we're cowards, and if that's what we are, then we deserve to be the last of the Free Folk."_

The Freefolk had survived the fight against the Night Watch. They had survived the fight for the North against the Boltons. They had survived the Long Night. Hopefully they could stay living in the Real North with certain peace, enjoying their freedom and to be able to roam around. But perhaps the Dragon Queen was right and they should have to stay alert and prepared for any wars to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like this!! Another case of trying to fix some of the things that didn't make sense from Season 8. I remember Tormund's face of awe when Daenerys arrived to the frozen lake to save them (I guess most of us would have the same face seeing dragons are real), so having him praising Jon for riding one a few times sounds like disrespect.
> 
> Feedback and comments are truly appreciated!


	16. Daenerys VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopes and fears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there!! Apologies for such a long hiatus. Some kind of writer's block, then personal stuff came into the way but here I am back to continue this little thing I am really grateful to all of you who have read it so far! I want to add two more chapters from the outline I had originally. I'm humbled since I have read so many great stories out there but hope you like this one too!

_"If I look back, I'm lost."_

She was sitting by the weirwood tree with little Aemon the day Jon came back with Ser Davos.

She was working on some arrowheads while her little son was entertained picking up fistfuls of dirt from the ground and throwing them on Ghost, and then crawling over the white direwolf. The mighty beast was lying sprawled next to him, silently enduring this silly torture.

Suddenly Ghost stood up and left towards the clear where she could see Jon and Ser Davos walking towards them.

The little boy saw his father in the distance and her heart filled at the sight of his big smile recognizing Jon. He crawled and then started walking on unsteady legs towards him. He had already started trying to walk during the time Jon was away so it would be a surprise for him. And she could see the smile in his eyes, waiting for his son to reach to where he was at. But then he hesitated and she could hear a ghost of a cry at potentially falling.

"Come on, boy, you've almost done it" said Jon, holding his arms out towards his son.

Inspired by the strength and encouragement in his father's voice, she saw the toddler clenching his tiny fists and making the last three steps to his father, who took him in his arms, grinning and kissing the little boy's silver hair.

"It's just like yesterday I saw him for the first time, and now he's already walking."

They were sitting by the fire later that night, while Jon was cradling Aemon to sleep.

She looked at him. He continued.

"I... sometimes I wondered what would have been like to have met my father. Rhaegar."

She smiled softly. "I wish I had met him too."

"I will be always grateful with Ned Stark for raising me as his son but... our relationship was never as close as a father and son. Lady Catelyn would never allow him to treat me as his trueborn sons."

She sighed looking at the fire.

"We were not raised by our fathers - perhaps a blessing in disguise for me - but I can understand. As I told you by your mother's crypt, I had always heard good things about Rhaegar. I wish you could have met Ser Barristan. He would have loved to meet you. He held my brother in high esteem. Meeting his son would have been great for him. He would tell me about how Rhaegar would be awesome at fighting and killing but he didn't like it. He preferred singing and playing."

_"We all enjoy what we're good at."_  
_"I don't."_

He chuckled.

"I might not be much of a singer myself. But one thing I know is that I want to spend the most time I can with our children."

"Children?"

"A man can dream', he laughed.

Moons passed and she was getting better at fighting with the sword.

Also the winter was slowly getting milder, as if spring was coming back to the lands they lived at. She wondered if this climate would be suitable to have a lemon tree.

And some other things were changing, but this time she could recognize the signs, the tenderness in her breasts and the small bump appearing again. All those symptoms she had overlooked before.

And also the morning sickness. This time coming nastier than the last time.

She tried to hide it as much as possible, sneaking out and walking to the nearby creek not to alarm Jon, but one day he followed her.

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing. I'm fine."

She could hear the concern in his voice.

"I'll tell the healer to come."

She reached for him and stopped him.

"No need."

She took his hand and guided it to her belly, looking at him with a smile and tears in her eyes.

He took a moment to get the meaning of it but his eyes told her he understood and immediately lifted her off her feet, in a total state of happiness.

_"Let it be fear, then."_

In the midst of all this bliss and new chances they both got, she had to admit there were moments when she was afraid. Perhaps it was the turmoil of feelings she was supposed to feel during this period, but there were moments she couldn't stop the tears falling when she thought about the little children burned in King's Landing. She thought of everything she had sacrificed, even a little bit of her humanity and her good heart. The gods she didn't believe in were cruel in that sense. It seemed like those dark times before her death and rebirth were written by a crazed hand who had no idea who was she and everything she had been through.

She shuddered. She realised how much she had won by losing it all, her former quests and goals, but would now and then feel afraid about what would happen if the Westerosi people found out she was still alive. Perhaps they would want to cause her harm in revenge for what she did in King's Landing.

But she had him. Aegon. Jon. Whichever was his real name. He was hers, and she was his.

She had this beautiful little boy with a big smile and bright eyes who would follow his father everywhere, playing with a little stick pretending to swing a sword like him.

And now she had a daughter too.

A Northern beauty, with dark raven curls like her father's, and big bright eyes between grey and violet, a perfect mix between Stark and Targaryen.

Just by looking at Jon holding her for the first time, and seeing him smiling softly while the little baby grabbed her little hand around his finger, she knew that little girl had him wrapped around her little finger already.

They named her Rhaella. Like the mother she never met. Like the grandmother he never met either.

She chuckled. They would rarely mention something about their relation as something negative. Clearly he had gotten over it, and she never had an issue with it. It was the outsiders who made a great deal about it, especially if it was convenient to their interests. Sometimes she would spend moments reflecting about it. Like Varys, how at the end he wanted to get rid of her alluding to her becoming insane whereas he had no issue supporting Viserys to get back to Westeros, when her brother had shown signs of madness and clearly not a real disposition to be a good ruler. Perhaps it was all about cocks in the end. And even so, not really. Westeros had driven to a moment of madness to the one who had worked harder to become their queen, then moved the rightful heir to kill her and then disposed of him away.

She wondered if he wanted a Stark name for their daughter. It seemed he had reconciled with his inheritance but not so much yet.

Same as with Aemon, she chose a second name for the little girl to honor a lost friend. Her daughter would be called Rhaella Missandei, to remember that sweet friend that had believed in her and followed her to the other side of the world, only to lose her life in front of her. She silently cried thinking of Missandei and how she would love her children. She thought of her brave commander Greyworm, and her Dothraki people. She didn't know if she would see them again, but silently prayed for all of them.

She thought of Jon's words. She might not have had the chance to meet her mother, but at least she would have faith on having the chance of raise her children and be a mother for them. More than a mother of dragons. A mother of Targaryens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! Well, I have to thank one of my friends who showed me a little picture of a Jonerys daughter like the image I had in mind for little Rhaella so i guess it was enough motivation to get back to this! Hope you like this and let's see where this story takes us now.


	17. Jon VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon thinks of his life and the changes he has embraced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here I am back after a long hiatus and a good motivator was to meet Kit Harington a few weeks ago, so of course it influenced a little bit this chapter (which it was going to be a Jon POV anyway). There is a time jump, so hope you like it!

He could see the seriousness reflected on that little face concentrating on the target in front of him. The boy was tensing the string of his bow and fired the arrow. He missed the target, instead hitting a nearby tree. He stomped his foot in frustration. Jon walked over to put his arm around the boy's shoulders.

_"Go on. Father's watching. And your mother."_

_"And which one of you was a marksman at ten?"_

Aemon was about half that age, but both himself and Daenerys thought it would be better to teach their children to be able to defend themselves.

_"Don't think too much, Bran."_

It seemed like it happened to somebody else, but there he was, standing again aside a little boy helping him to learn archery.

The young boy inhaled, then he pulled the arrow and prepared to fire. Suddenly an arrow hit the direct center of the target, and both Jon and Aemon looked back to see where that arrow had come from.

Daenerys was standing a distance behind them, holding a bow with a bemused look on her face.

"Mother!"

He started laughing while his wife walked towards them, followed by little Rhaella and Ghost.

"Show me your position" Daenerys asked her son, and the little boy obliged and lifted his little arm with the bow and the arrow. "Keep your elbow high, you want your back doing the hard labour." "You're holding. Never hold."

"What?"  
"Your muscles tense when you hold. Pull the string back to the center of your chin and release. Never hold."

Her son looked at her quizzically.

"Then how am I supposed to aim?"

He could tell he had a soft smile in his face by watching the intelligent mind of his son, questioning his mother.

"Never aim. Your eye knows where the arrow should go. Trust your eye."

Jon looked lovingly at both her and their son. Through these years, even without a crown, she had embodied even more the warrior queen image he had in his mind when he was just a bastard boy playing to be a Targaryen. These last few years had made no impact in his beauty. It was even more enhanced at his eyes. She looked now like a true warrior queen, a Visenya reborn, who had shown to be a fast learner and become skilled at swordfighting. He would enjoy practicing and teaching her. She had also learned from the FreeFolk and from him to become a pretty good archer. Her skills could rival... any of the skilled archers he had known before.

"LITTLE CROW!"

He looked around and saw Tormund with a little toddler with curly black hair and violet eyes over his shoulders, beaming with joy and enjoying the ride.

They had named him Daeron. Their third child.

Three little children of their own. Sam would have told him that he indeed knew where to put it, he secretly laughed. Thinking about his old comrade, he found he was not that mad anymore against his old friend.

_"...he took a knife in the heart for his people"_

Even so, there were remnants of everything they went through. Sometimes their strong personalities would make them face each other like storms. They were ice and fire, but at the same time the dragon would wake on him and their strong wills would clash against each other, like it happened a long time before, where they met in Dragonstone.

_"Perhaps we should be examining what we think we know."_

_"You know I'm not going to let Cersei stay in the Iron Throne."_  
_"I never expected that you would."_  
_"And I haven't changed my mind about which kingdoms belong to that Throne."_  
_"I haven't either."_

Sometimes it was just like back then, where two stormy currents would clash against each other on the sea.

But even at their hardest moments, everything was way better that the taste in his mouth of the sorrow and sadness he had felt grieving over her death. The murder he had committed by his own hand.

Both of them together had already stories enough for a lifetime. He thought of all the places she had been, from Vaes Dothrak to King's Landing, from Dragonstone to Beyond the Wall. They were fortunate to have each other.

He had once told Sam he was not a bloody poet. His smile was a way to hide all the words that would not come out, all the ways he would like to know how to express his feelings. He remembered the first time he saw her, standing proud and regal, walking towards him and making him think she was the most insufferable woman in the world. He still had that bitter memory of what he thought it would be the last time he saw her beautiful face - with a thin drop of blood flowing slowly from her mouth - but it seemed their story wasn't over yet.

He had learned to live with it. With that feeling of dread and fear that he accepted it would be like an ever-present old foe lurking around. There would be fear of waking up one day and finding out everything had been just a dream. There would be fear when looking at the smiling face of his son, training with a sword the Freefolk had made especially for him and showing he had inherited the skills of both his father and himself, from Rhaegar and Aegon. There would be fear when holding the hand of his little daughter, asking him when they could go flying with Drogon.

_"You're good at this, you know."_  
_"At what?"_  
_"Ruling."_  
_"No."_  
_"You are. You are. They respect you, they really do, but..."_

They had seemed to had settle for a simpler kind of life. And he was not complaining at all.

Perhaps his reluctance to be a ruler, as everyone implied him to be born to, was because he didn't enjoy the game. His ideals, his intentions did not agree with the game of thrones everyone at Westeros was used to play. And the price to pay to be a winner of that game was too high for him. It almost killed him. And now he realized that with the ones he loved, his true family, not the Starks he grew up with or the Targaryens he never met, his true and only family who were Daenerys and their children were far too precious for him to risk just for the sake of power. He preferred them settling for a simpler life, far from castles and power struggles.

_"What do a thousand swords look like in the mind of a little girl who cannot count to twenty?"_

And yet, the legacy of the House of the Dragon lived through both of them. They would sit by the fire, his little son helping him practice his Valyrian and name their ancestors - what they had learned from the books of Maester Aemon - while Daenerys would teach little Rhaella to count. He would tell his children about his brave and honorable uncle Eddard, who had saved both his life and her mother's, while Daenerys would repeat the stories Ser Barristan had told her about Rhaegar.

They had built a settlement, and after a few visits to Castle Black he had found no one had missed him and that the Night's Watch wasn't really thought like a feasible way to send the prisoners since there was no Wall to take care of, so they thought him going back every now and then wasn't necessary anymore.

Little Aemon had Daenerys's looks but his brooding personality, whereas Rhaella was her mother's daughter, though her looks were taken from the Starks. Daeron was still too young to resemble any of their personalities, even when he looked like a younger version of himself with violet eyes.

And then there was another little Targaryen coming.

"Are you afraid?" He asked her after their excitement for the news had calmed a little bit.

"Of course I'm afraid. Every moment of every day."  
"And I."  
"But we mustn't be. Where is our faith? Where is our gratitude? We're here, we're alive, we have blood in our veins."  
"And the past is gone."  
"It is. If we look back we are lost."

She looked into his eyes and he could see the feeling they both shared. He felt like that moment when he was recovering after returning from Eastwatch when he knew he was in love with her.

"What are we going to call her?"  
"Her? Are you so sure it will be a girl?"  
"Can we name her Lyanna?"

Lyanna. The name of that formidable lady who had defied her family and dared to love a dragon. The one who had named him as a Targaryen, with his true name, Aegon.

_"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives..."_

Every now and then, he would think of the ones he thought were his siblings. The ones who betrayed him and made him betray himself by killing the one he really loved. They were no more. That little boy he would patiently stand by while he learned to shoot arrows. That little girl he would give the sword she wanted the most. The older ladylike girl who, like her mother, would look at him with disdain regarding him a bastard.

_"We're family. The four of us. The last of the Starks."_  
_"I've never been a Stark."_

And he never was totally just a Stark. He wanted to be, but he could not deny part of his legacy. Perhaps some would expect him to be the lone wolf to die, but he didn't. He embraced now his Targaryen side. He was Jon no more. He was a dragon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to confess that while I was outlining this chapter I was watching Outlander, Vikings and Poldark so you might see some influence from it in the lives of Jon and Daenerys. There is an epilogue coming with a surprise character POV (I think I left some hints in this chapter of who that character could be). I'm still debating if I want to write a sequel to this. I have been procrastinating with this little fic, perhaps I don't want to let these two go, but at the same time I think of all the possibilities their stories can have. 
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are truly appreciated!!

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the title is inspired on a quote from Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: "Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and above all those who live without love."


End file.
